When Politicians Lie ...

... police pay the price ...

... as a new generation learns that British democracy isn't working.

Guess Who's Hosting World Press Freedom Day

From BoingBoing

China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, USA - some of the nations whose governments are most heavy handed in their political censorship of the internet. All have constitutions which, as I understand it, guarantee freedom of speech, yet all strongly attack those who embarrass the state.

China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, by and large, confine the bulk of their censorship to within their own state borders. The USA is trying, with some success so far, to censor the rest of the world as well. Death threats, threats of imprisonment, allegations of terrorist activity which would be laughable if they weren't so dangerous, government to government coercion - to which Australia has simply rolled over (at least initially), and Switzerland and Sweden appear to have been, at the very least, heavily influenced - and government to private industry coercion: Visa & Mastercard (who happily work with the Ku Klux Klan and its allies), PayPal, Amazon, and so on. It is remarkable how much effective control the US government actually has over the functioning of the internet.

So who has recently announced that they are to host Unesco's World Press Freedom day, 2011? The USA, of course. The writer of their press release appears to have a fine sense of irony:

"The theme for next year's commemoration will be 21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers. The United States places technology and innovation at the forefront of its diplomatic and development efforts. New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals' right to freedom of expression. At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information. We mark events such as World Press Freedom Day in the context of our enduring commitment to support and expand press freedom and the free flow of information in this digital age."

As this Guardian news blog put it: "Shameless. You really could not make it up."

To end on a lighter note, the best joke of the week so far - thanks again to the Guardian Newspaper's blog - comes from Ben Yarrow's Twitter account (with a hat tip to @janinegibson):

Freedom of Speech - priceless. For everything else, there's MasterCard.

 

I Wish I'd Written That

'The God Who Wastes Nothing', on Be Free Mama

Or, at least, I wish I could write that well about things that matter.

Rob Bell is an American speaker/preacher who is best known for his Noomas - short (10 to 14 minutes), punchy, real-life DVDs, which aim to "explore our world from a perspective of Jesus". More recently he has also done a series of speaking tours where he goes to the opposite extreme of speaking for around 2 hours; with the talk at one of the tour locations being filmed and released on DVD. His latest such film is called Drops Like Stars, which explores "the endlessly complex relationship between suffering and creativity". (Bell has never been one to avoid tricky issues). I've seen the DVD, but Stephanie Moors saw him live, in Tempe last February. And blogged about a part of it. I can't see an excerpt from the post that I can sensibly take out to include here, so I just suggest you read the whole thing; it's not long.

The odd thing about this, is that Be Free Mama looks like a blog about pregnancy and young children. I've been there done that, carry the scars (never let them tell you that the woman has the hardest part of childbirth :) ). I don't have any desire to relive the experience vicariously, thank you very much. So, if I hadn't stepped into the blog in the middle, as it were, I'd never have paid any attention to it. Yet, once I put some time time and effort in properly looking, I found it full of poetry: meditative, spiritual and earthed.

When I first started blogging, it seemed to be easy to find good blogs all over the internet (back when it had a capital 'I'). Now it seems much, much harder (not an original thought). Facebook is fashionable now, of course, but for me it is far too instant, no time for reflection, for thought, for exploration of new and interesting ideas. Lots of bloggers I really liked have stopped blogging, others have said everything once, and are changing their style to avoid repeating themselves.

Of course, it may be that back then blogging was new to me, so I spent more time exploring. Most blogs have sidebars with other blogs of interest; although it does take time to explore the web they form. But the biggest source of useful links, I think, used to be comments. A thoughtful comment on a blog I'm reading, with a link to the commenter's blog, is a reason to follow that link and explore further. Yet, there don't seem to be so many comments on posts now, and those there are tend to be in small close-knit groups. It's as though the internet, once so exciting as it opened up the world, is fragmenting into like-minded groups blogging into their own tight neighbourhoods.

Or maybe I'm just getting old.

Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows, Part 1

Spoiler alert - if you haven't read the book and haven't seen the film yet, don't read the following, just go and see the film. If you haven't read any of the books or seen any of the films, then this film on its own might be somewhat confusing. Read the books first, then see this film.

From the opening scenes you can tell this film is going to take a different approach. The first six Harry Potter films had a serious case of 'quart into a pint pot' (more like 'gallon ...' for a couple). For the final book, though, they have chosen to split it into two parts; it makes a big difference.

Right near the beginning there is a marvellously poignant piece of visual imagery: Hermione uses her magic to make her parents forget all about her (for their safety), and the film shows family photographs with Hermione's picture slowly being faded out of each. Time is taken with each of the main characters to establish that loss and isolation are going to be big themes.

There are still action sequences, of course, and there is humour, and there is an intense three-way relationship at the heart of the film. But the backdrop is that the bad guys are winning, and Harry, Ron & Hermione are on their own.

At the start of the film the three have the Order of the Phoenix to help them. Then Hedwig dies, then Mad-Eye Moody. Then the Ministry of Magic falls, and the Weasleys' home is invaded. After that Harry, Hermione and Ron are alone: on the run, seeking out Voldemort's Horcruxes in the slight hope that once they're all destroyed he can be beaten. But they don't know where they are and, when they do find one, they don't even know how to destroy it. Instead the Horcrux in their possession just drags them down further.

Eventually even Ron goes away, leaving just Harry and Hermione wandering around various scenic but bleak parts of the UK. There is one beautiful scene: as the two reach rock bottom, Hermione is listening sadly to music on the radio, then Harry takes the Horcux off her for a moment and they dance together, in their tent in the middle of nowhere.

But the wandering isn't totally vain. Eventually they begin to find out about the 'deathly hallows': a cloak of invisibility, a stone of resurrection and an unbeatable wand. They also realise, through Harry's dream connection, that Voldement is seeking the wand. They are too busy running, though, to do anything about it. Nevertheless, Dumbledore's legacy leads Ron back to the others, so they are three again; part of the loss is restored - especially as in the process they retrieve a sword which is able to destroy the Horcux. But then they are captured. Dobbie the house elf is able to free them, but is killed as they escape. Harry buries Dobbie, then the film ends with Voldemort finding the unbeatable wand and revelling in its power.

In the book, Dumbledore is a central thread: his backstory, Harry's feelings of doubt and alienation, and the teenage Dumbledore's relationship with the dark wizard Grindelwald. None of this is in the film. On one level this makes a lot of sense, as it probably wouldn't have transferred well anyway (and I'm not at all convinced by Michael Gambon as Dumbledore anyway); on another level, though, it means you lose the 'dark night of the soul' element of Harry's wanderings, leaving a shallower result. Nevertheless, given the size of the book, I think this was a reasonable thread to leave out.

There are a couple of disappointing scenes later on in the film, as things start to move again. There is a very ominous, even scarey, scene in the book where Harry and Hermione walk into a trap baited by a dead Bathilda Bagshot in Godric's Hollow. In the film the scene is run-of-mill, with little tension, even when the trap is sprung - just a standard wand battle and escape.

Similarly, in the book the aftermath of Dobby's death is a deeply moving passage where Harry buries his body and magically carves a tombstone honouring Dobby, 'a free house elf'. In the film, Harry buries the body in sand and then the movie rushes on to show the final scene of Voldemort getting the wand. For my daughter, and I'm sure many others, Dobby's death was the saddest moment in the film, yet little was made of it. In a film lasting 146 minutes, would it have been so hard to spend an extra moment mourning the heroic Dobby?

That said, this remains an enjoyable film to watch. It's also very obviously only half the story, and I'm looking forward to the finale next spring.

To Thine Own Self Be True?

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

So says Polonius to his son in Act I of Hamlet.  Nutsy quoted it recently in her blog, Miss Gracie, and it got me thinking (hat tip or something to Easy here too).

"Be true to myself" - which self? The self-ish, self-indulgent self who just wants an excuse to do things its own way? The idealistic, possibly even priggish, self who wants to help make the world a better place, whatever the cost?

Down the sidebar of this blog, under 'About Me', I call myself a "child of God: created in His image, fallen, redeemed, struggling, looking forward to renewal" - lots of selfs, not all of which I can be true to at the same time. For me, the self I really want to be true to is the one I believe I was made to be. Not the messed-up, twisted, distorted image that I have become, but the restored, renewed self that I originally should have been and, God-willing, one day will be. The sidebar continues, "weary of empty religion," surely any religion is empty which doesn't encourage and support us in being true to the best we can be, rather than just what we are now; the people we were made to be, not just souls overly shaped by the world in which we live.

A few months before he died, Johnny Cash recorded a cover of the Nine Inch Nails song Hurt:-

I find it painful watching; Cash seems to have been a man who really epitomised truth, in all its painful honesty. YouTube also has a part of documentary featuring the Hurt video and interviews with friends and family. This is excellent, I think, but do watch the straight Cash video above first:-