Some news titbits from the last days of September

Penis to eat

Big ones, small ones, fat ones, small ones. Dogs, ox, sheep, horse, (illegal) tiger… snake (snake!...yeah you heard right, snake!)…… and human ones too (?), well we hope not, but.......

Each has there nutritional value, or at least that is what they say at the restaurant where the waiters are called a nutritionist rather than the common name of waiter. The notion of common would seem to be a major theme in this restaurant. Alcohol is not encouraged as they consider people common who drink too much and laugh. I am not too sure whether people who laugh without drinking are also common. However apparently it would seem that people who give out large sums of money for a special meal that cost $5,700 (£3,000) are not common. Nor is it common to eat the penis of a tiger that has illegally been caught.

Of course if you do not want to eat a penis then you can always eat some testicles, although these are not recommended for women, but apparently few women (who can blame them!) go to this Chinese restaurant anyway. Well if you think you are going to find this kind of menu at your local corner Chinese restaurant you are wrong (I think!) because this restaurant that the BBC reported about is in Beijing. Of course also a place for party officials, and not common people like me who think a waiter is a waiter, although I don’t drink so at least that might be a plus point for me at this restaurant, but somehow I don’t think I will visit this restaurant, that is if I ever get to Beijing. It’s certainly no laughing matter to me, with or without alcohol! But things have certainly swollen in China when people can afford a meal costing so much!

Well I can here some people saying yeah, well what do you expect from China but one interesting note to close, the Chinese guy who started this restaurant first got interested in this nutritional food source while living in America.


Sex and those male (Republican) members

Since I was on the subject of members (although admittedly of the male private parts type) let us look at the news about a U.S. Republican Party member who has been accused of sending what is classed as improper or “over-friendly” emails to a former 16 year old teenage page (no not the book type of page but the hotel type, although in this case one who worked for another Republican Representative!).

Even more revealing is that the Republican Party member was a lawmaker (and in this capacity apparently had something to do with children’s issues - caucus on missing and exploited children!) and that top Republican Party members were aware about these over-friendly or improper emails and they did nothing about it until the matter had been raised by ABC News.

Well for those of you interested in the more sordid details you can check out the website of abcnews.com and the Brian Ross page. There is some dispute as to how sexual implicit (or not) these emails are, personally I think the User Comments to the article* “Sixteen-Year-Old Who Worked as Capitol Hill Page Concerned About E-mail Exchange with Congressman” are more interesting with comments like: “….Witch hunt? Give me a break...... Must be a slow news day…… time for the left-wing media to slap the Republicans yet again, right?...” “….This is NOT news! Quit wasting my time with this worthless questionable garbage…..” or “….Brian Ross, the King of sensationalistic crap….”!


*(http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/09/sixteenyearold_.html) 

Part 2: Some news titbits from the last days of September

News and Sensationalistic crap! What is the real role of BBC World Service News?

Sensationalistic crap is the User Comment (reply) from one reader to an article by Brian Ross of ABC News (see above: “..Brian Ross, the King of sensationalistic crap…”). Since I am now on the subject of news I would like to look at the news reporting of the BBC World Service. At least mainly the radio form since there is a major and important difference between the radio form and the internet form! The BBC World Service has programmes which it calls Newshour (in actual fact they have a long and confusing list of programmes that deal with News or news items or items they class as currant affairs!). Now since this programme (and others that use the term news) is called Newshour you might expect it to be purely about reporting news. Well this is the problem, what exactly is news, or when do we or should we call it news?

Well, unlike me, the BBC World Service would seem to have no problem here. They often proudly brag about their “impartial” “unbiased” “up-to-the-minute” “independent” “reliable” “trustworthy” “dependable” “around-the-world” news service. However the BBC and I would seem to (seriously) disagree not only about what constitutes the meaning or term “news” but also disagree about many of the qualities they brag about!

Besides the fact that in my opinion the BBC World Service News could be renamed to be called the British Broadcasting the Voice of American Politics (funnily enough the same has been said about Tony Blair, and the BBC is dependent on Government money!) there is this serious question as to what constitutes news!

In actual fact the majority of the time of a programme like Newshour is not filled with reporting actual (pure) news but with opinions or personal views. These personal views and opinions come from the BBC’s own reporters or from other people. These other people can range from people on the street to people the BBC tell us are the experts or leading experts or people qualified in some form. Often these views and opinions are called assessments or other such important and significant (a word also used often) terms to give them some weight. But in the end they remain the views, opinions, or assessments or one single person. The icing to the cake is given by the news reader’s comments and questions which in the end determine how it looks or the impression it gives, or leaves behind at the end. More recently the BBC have also started adding, or reading out, listeners email comments to a particular subject matter of these news programmes (and other programmes).

And this is supposed to be news?

Needless to say the BBC determines this kind of news. They determine what kind of news gets the focus, what gets reported and what not, who the people are that get to give their comment, (expert) opinion and what type of opinion they are going to have, which listeners emails get read out and at which particular (important) moment of the programme, they determine in interviews if it is to be an aggressive (enemy type – go deep, get them to say something they will regret) or soft glove (friend – don’t rock the boat and be too hard or go too deep) interview and who should get what (and why), in other words they have almost full control of these kind of news reporting.

Radio broadcasting was used during the Second World War against the Nazis in every possible way. To spread propaganda, convey secret messages, give confusing or miss-information, to spread unease or fear amongst the German population and so on. No doubt a lot of expertise was built up during this time. The development of psychology has also helped in the technique of radio sending just as much as it has in such things as advertisements, or film and so on.

Most psychologists are aware of the power of the way a word is spoken out, and with what tones where; how often a word is used and at what moment; the construction of a sentence….there are so many ways of influencing, or manipulating, or expressing so that certain ideas, pictures, views, opinions come across as the strongest and are left in the head of the listener (or viewer, or reader, or person) the longest and strongest. After all psychologists have studied and still study closely this subject and its workings on the human mind and human behaviour, most of which happens at the subconscious level.

I have often wondered, in this day and age of investigative reporting, that no reporter has ever taken a close and microscopic look at the workings of BBC World Service News, but perhaps that is getting too close to home? Perhaps there is some unwritten rule not to investigate your own kind, opening a can of worms, on news reporting and losing all that revenue or power or whatever!

But talking of power I certainly think that the BBC has a lot of it. Their propaganda has certainly convinced a lot of people around the world that they are an “impartial” “unbiased” “up-to-the-minute” “independent” “reliable” “trustworthy” “dependable” “around-the-world” news service.

(As a note of interest: Microsoft (another house of power) and the BBC have agreed to work together! Now what does that tell us?)

Forgive me, but it will take more than the sprinkling of holy water to convince me.


Holy (hot) Water 

Well it was more like hot water than holy water that the Pope walked into with his comments, but despite the Pope saying he meant no disrespect I still fail to understand why he chose to quote a 14th Century Christian emperor, after all it is not the kind of thing you find just lying about and surely since then (or before then) so many things must of have been written on the subject of (different) religions, so why pick this particular thing? Oh well, let sleeping dogs lie (but apparently not always the cash)!

The Catholic Church seems to be getting into hot (or holy) water quite a lot in recent times. There was the hot water of the sex scandals and now the police (Delray Beach Police Department) have charged two retired priests with grand theft. Slush fund accounts (secret bank accounts), condos, gambling trips, cars, high school tuition payments for a girlfriend's son are all part of the juicy (holy) details. What were those Ten Commandments once again?