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THE BILL AND TONY SHOW, WEEK 5: BOMBS AND STANDARDS BOTH FALLING FASTER
Issue No 289 Tuesday 27 April 1999
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Editorial correspondence should be sent to InkyText@lancaster.ac.uk
Subscription requests to Inkytext-distribution-request@lists.lancaster.ac.uk
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The Richardson Institute
(Department of Politics and International Relations)
KOSOVO: WHERE NOW?
Video-lecture-debate on the Kosovo conflict
Video: The War Room
Speaker: Dr Hugh Miall
29th April 3:00 - 4:30 pm
Frankland Colloquium Room
Organised by the Richardson Institute
(Applied Reseach in Peace and Conflict) Lancaster University.
------------
AGENDA
Minutes, Amendments, Matters arising
1. Editorial: Bombs and standards fall ever faster
2. News: Funeral, Landscape Working group.
3. Management, Metaphor, Milosevic by Bogdan Costea
4. Small Ads: Saxophone for sale, Accommodation wanted, Host family sought,
Rover 216i, Ubu Roi, Honda, Free tent, Hanging baskets, Comedians wanted,
Old BMW, Electrical Contracting, Political assassinations in Russia.
5. Fact or Fiction
6. Readers' Letters: Kosovo, Heraldry, Buttered toast, Wedding greetings,
Vowel drop.
MINUTES, AMENDMENTS, MATTERS ARISING
------------------------------------
MILES MATHER (French/ Marketing) completed the London Marathon in 3
hours 49 minutes, coming 9914th. Sponsorship cheques should be made
payable to the Peper Harow Foundation [SIC] and sent to him at Furness
College.
1. EDITORIAL: BOMBS AND STANDARDS FALL EVER FASTER
--------------------------------------------------
What should one make of a country where the death of a television
personality wipes a war from the front pages?
The shock of Miss Dando's murder brought expressions of sympathy from
the Queen and the Prime Minister, caused ITV to replace its programme
schedule with a documentary dedicated to her and has prompted
intemperate outpourings of grief tinged with prurience throughout the
national press.
Meanwhile our bombs (i.e. your bombs) continued to fall overnight on
the Balkans, few of them ever even being judged worthy of reporting
individually. No doubt a few more Serbs or Albanians were killed by one
side or another. Being anonymous and not photogenic, such casualties of
war are far less newsworthy than the touching children landed in Leeds
to illustrate our own compassion and charity.
There is no point in arguing who is most compassionate. Dimmer readers
interpreted an earlier reference to 'masterly inactivity' as a
suggestion that one should do nothing. It is of course a call for
patiently maintaining the status quo, which invariably frustrates those
wanting to see what you are 'going to do'.
What did we do? Withdrawing UN observers removed impartial witnesses
to atrocities, whose presence must in at least some cases have had an
inhibiting effect. Threatening then bombing further enflamed the
violence of Serbian soldiers.
If anyone has any evidence that our action has prevented Serbian
forces in Kosovo from killing or expelling anyone they wished, please
could they produce it. In terms of its initial avowed objectives our
'just' war has been a total failure, and possibly worse. It has now
transmuted into the war of Nato's face.
It is a conviction of this journal that all deaths are equally tragic,
at least to the loved ones of the deceased. Insofar as the inhabitants
of a land keep banishing this from their minds their humanity is
diminished and human 'progress' is retarded.
That clearly applies as much to Britain as to Serbia
2. NEWS
-------
THE FUNERAL OF FRANCESCA GIBSON took place yesterday. A packed RC
chapel listened to a sonnet by Petrarch and some of Francesca's
favourite music. The haunting trumpets and strings of modern Flemish
composer Alan Hovhaness' Prayer of St Gregory began the service, which
was conducted by RC Chaplain Fr Steve Pearson, assisted by Anglican
Chaplain Di Williams. Mourners listened to Joan Sutherland and
Pavarotti singing 'Un di felice, eterea...' from La Traviata, and to
Bellini's 'Casta Diva' from Norma. Dee Reynolds, Michela Masci and
Alysson Fiddler gave personal appreciations. The recessional music was
Brian Eno's Deep Blue Day.
A group from Lancaster followed the cortege to Rhyl, where the small
Catholic parish was widely represented at a Mass in the modern RC
Church of St Mary. A line of 12 cars later followed the hearse, by now
bedecked by beautiful flower arrangements of Dianaesque proportions,
passing via the family home to collect her baptismal candle. Francesca
was buried in the family plot where her father lies. The moving lines
by Salvatore Quasimodo read at the end of the Lancaster service are to
be engraved on Francesca's tombstone:
"Ognuno sta solo sul cuor della terra
trafitto da raggio de sole:
ed e` subito sera."
[Each of us is alone on the heart of the earth
pierced by a ray of sun:
suddenly it is evening.]
CONGRATULATIONS TO DR ANOUSHKA KULIKOWSKY, recently graduated Physics
Ph.D, who has been appointed Assistant Editor for Electronics Letters by
The Institute of Electrical Engineers. Soon Dr Lazarus and colleagues
will see a more familiar name on the letters asking them to referee
papers.
THE LANDSCAPE WORKING GROUP, chaired by Professor Rodwell, is inviting
comments on 2 issues? First is the use of 2 allocations of Tax
Efficient Pay funds and second is the preliminary designs for
refurbishing the University entrance, signage, Alex Square and the
hitching post. This is a copy of the exhibition recently put up by
Estates. The LWG Current Issues Page is at:
http://www.lancs.ac.uk/users/committees/lpg/issues.htm
3. MANAGEMENT, METAPHOR, MILOSEVIC by Bogdan Costea
---------------------------------------------------
A comment on Mike Wright's (managerial) summary on possible courses of
action/inaction in Kosovo: the suggestion of ground troops just goes to
show how misunderstood the real effect of war on people is.
Fortunately, the vast majority of us do not have any experience of
military violence in our immediate proximity. That perhaps makes it
easier, over a cup of coffee, to come up with interpretations on this,
that or the other aspect of a far away (this is key, I think, in this
history) 'happening'. I used 'far away' and 'happening' advisedly. As
an eastern European myself (as if that mattered... but anyway...), I
read around me left, right and centre about this 'event' and have a
strange feeling that for most commentators this part of the world is
not the close to heart, soul and mind context with which we identify
and thus want to defend. It seems (like many other instances before, I
dare say) rather more like a fish bowl over which we can safely muse
and be happy that it isn't happening to us.
So, back to the point of ground troops: any suggestion of further
military engagement is at least ill-considered. The tendency to
managerially strategise, in the mind, is - no doubt - meant to help;
but, as always, there is no substitute for ultimate/eschatological
experiences. And war is one of them. Suggesting any complication or
enhancement of military action in this case (as in many others) can
only be done when we lack imagination: war is horrible for the Being of
the human creature; its traumas are not 'manageable', they can't be
reasoned out of history later on (referring to Paddy Ashdown's - et
al.'s - view that the Serbs only hate NATO because they don't know the
truth; as soon as NATO wins they'll be told what NATO's view was and
then they'll say "Ah? That's what was going on? Well then, bombing us
was very good. We love you NATO!").
On the other hand, disagreement on paper, verbal arguments, endless
symbolic pressures at the green table have limitless potential to move
the situation towards a more desirable configuration (constructive for
all, it might be argued - even if for some, e.g. Mr. M, it may only
mean avoiding too great a loss of face - if not hopefully losing it
altogether, etc.). In other words, one can do whatever violence one
wants - but in symbols. Even if the Kosovars will be persuaded to
overcome their natural visceral fears and return in some numbers to
their places, what will be those 'places'? Who is going/willing to
rebuild them overnight, repair these people's livelihoods, spare them
the nightmares, or give them any guarantee against the warped
collective identity they'll have to inhabit? [In making the latter
comments, I simply assume that it has become more or less clearer that
the violence against the Albanian community in Kosovo has been
exponentially amplified by military intervention - compared to the
tensions that were there before.]
What else could have been done for the resolution of the crisis in
Kosovo? The answers are varied and I have personally heard sound
constructive scenarios from many knowledgeable and realistic
commentators. But that is academic now. Not so academic are the
positive scenarios offered by serious minds to the current crisis
(which I personally believe has changed its quality and social texture
after 24 March). I am not going to speculate, but I'll say that all
these positions appear to have one thing in common: they don't count
military conflict as a route to peace.
Which probably leads my thinking to a sixth - as yet unconsidered -
course of possible action (added to Mike's five alternatives): NATO
might begin to admit to itself that they might have got their moves
wrong, that their strategy has been a bit unintelligible both
politically and militarily. Humans being, even NATO strategists can
err. The assumption that they can't is dangerous since it only means
that they dig themselves into a deepening hole (bombing civilians, TV
journalists as opinion forming centres, sending troops in, etc.). This
has happened before - Vietnam is the most spectacular example, but
others are readily available in the history of US and US-led military
interventions.
I guess an interesting dimension of this re-working of assumptions
behind this action is the discourse used to describe the crisis. It
seems based (so far) on certain inadequate historical analogies meant
to vilify Milosevic (as if he wasn't bad enough!). These analogies warp
public perception of the political and social phenomena under scrutiny
in order to justify the intervention under way. As on many other
occasions, the story we're told comes somewhat after action has begun
and its aim is to help us see no other alternative than that which has
already been chosen.
In the current case, the desire is to create some form of
identification between Kosovo, the Holocaust, Milosevic, and Hitler.
The campaign of naming phenomena in a distorted fashion is harmful to
understanding what is going on now, as well as what history was like.
Categories such "humanitarian disaster/catastrophe" (NATO officials et
al), "Holocaust" (German Foreign and Defence Secretaries), "final
solution", "genocide" (Robin Cook, George Robertson), "deportations",
"concentration camps" (Wesley Clark et al) are used in a way which
relates historical occurrences of a certain order with current events
of a different substance. [Interestingly enough, "humanitarian
disaster" has already been toned down to "human disaster" in an attempt
to avoid some of the problematic assimilation of the Kosovan crisis to
the situation in Europe and Germany after the second world war.]
But to all people who want to understand what is going on it becomes
clear that "Holocaust" is used abusively and it undoubtedly harms the
memory of the millions of Jews exterminated in death camps. The
inflationary use of this word by many (by animal rights activists in
the sintagm "the holocaust of cattle", or by those describing Stalin's
extermination of Russians in Siberian camps as the "Red Holocaust")
obscures its meaning and leaves us a bit more ignorant regarding what
has been going on in Nazi Germany and in the Soviet Union, and what is
happening in Kosovo.
The same goes for the indiscriminate use of the word "deportation"
whenever masses of people are on the move. In Kosovo, we are not
witnessing deportations (the systematic, forced displacement of a
population by government(s) to precise, contained regions or confines
with the purpose of physical extermination/elimination); it is rather a
case of eviction (pushing masses out of their residence towards the
border where they can take whatever route they have available - this is
not what happened to the Jews rounded up and sent to Bergen Belsen).
I think these phenomena need to be properly understood in order for
future plans of reconstruction to be conceivable. Nor is genocide
appropriate since the vast majority of Kosovo Albanians have not been
exterminated and for them there needs to be a contingency available -
as they are still around. [Note: in Rwanda, where the West did not want
to intervene, the word 'genocide' was not used until after the end of
the... genocide.]
The essence of these analogies is that they make it impossible for me
and I suppose for any responsible citizen of Europe to ever be able to
engage in critical analysis of destructive actions against a
perpetrator of "genocide", "Holocaust", "final solutions",
"deportations", etc. It also makes it easier to assimilate the entire
nation around such a figure to that figure itself (and Serbians are not
all like that); it makes it easier to bomb journalists as if they were,
say, Goring's Nazi propaganda 'apparatus' (the more recent notion used
by the Prime Minister). And it makes it obviously more difficult to
ever re-engage in any negotiations, or dis-engage from destroying
whatever is perceived to be the root of evil (the danger being that
Serbs are all lumped together in that category).
I am not engaging here in a polemic; nor am I defending Milosevic and
his twisted policies of provincial nationalism and war mongering. It is
simply a debate which can only take place because we (fortunately)
inhabit the house of non-obscurantist language. And to some extent I
felt the civic responsibility to explore in public my own perceptions.
4. SMALL ADS
-------------
FOR SALE: THREE-QUARTER EARLHAM ALTO SAXOPHONE - 2 years old. Ideal
for beginner. Offers around 425 GBP (was 530 GBP new), recently serviced.
Telephone Pennie Drinkall on (01524) 792106 or email
p.drinkall@lancaster.ac.uk
-------------
PROFESSIONAL FEMALE URGENTLY SEEKS ACCOMMODATION in Lancaster area,
room in shared house or flat. Call (mobile) 07887-748314
-----------------
FOR SALE: ROVER 216i (T-Bar) COUPE, M Reg (1994).
Excellent condition, full service history, 31,000 miles,
recently serviced, taxed and tested, 4 brand new tyres,
metallic platinum silver, part walnut dash, black cloth interior.
Factory-fitted alarm and immobiliser.
Two careful lady owners. 7,200 ONO
Extension: 594177 (day) Telephone: (01524) 410667 (evening)
or Contact: c.odonnell@lancaster.ac.uk
-----------
FOR SALE: HONDA (VF 500 FII), C Reg. Good Condition, 26,000 miles,
long MOT, red, white and blue. 1700.
Contact: 01524 421408 (after 7pm).
----------
HOST FAMILY WANTED: A shy and retiring sixteen year old from Siena
(Italy), who wants to improve his English, is seeking a host family in
July-August and is offering to reciprocate by arranging similar
accommodation with his family. Contact Paolo Palladino (92793 or
P.Palladino@lancaster.ac.uk).
-------------
CENTRE FOR SCIENCE STUDIES
WEDNESDAY 28 APRIL
** Cartmel Senior Common Room **
4:00 - 5:30 pm
ROBERTA BIVINS
Wellcome Unit, University of Manchester
'Making the Exotic Orthodox: British Acupuncture Before and After the NHS'
----------------
Summer Hanging Baskets '99
Will Huxham is again providing Summer Baskets this year. They're the
same price as the last 2 years: 10GBP with your own basket (9GBP for
half baskets), and 12GBP if he supplies the basket.
Only 100 baskets being planted up this year so get your order in now!
First come first served... Contents will be an array of trailing plants
similar to previous years. Delivery, late May/early June, to Lancaster
University or Dallas Rd School, or to Lancaster addresses for an extra
50p per order.
Orders can be taken up to 10th May - but the sooner the better.
To order, use the form below, or phone Fiona Frank on 01524 381263
(answerphone).
Will Huxham, who has 25 years experience in horticulture, is also
available for garden design projects, specialising in children's secret
gardens and organic gardening (including training in organic
gardening). Contact him direct on 01772 252903 to discuss design
projects.
----------------------------------------------------------
HANGING BASKET ORDER FORM Return to Fiona Frank, CSET, Cartmel
College, Lancaster University, LA1 4YL (Email f.frank@lancaster.ac.uk)
Or c/o Dallas Rd School, Lancaster (or phone details to 01524 381263)
Number of baskets required with own basket supplied at 10 pounds ----
Number of new baskets required at 12 pounds ---
Number of half baskets required with own basket supplied at 9 pounds ---
PAYMENT ON DELIVERY, late May/early June
Own baskets? Please bring own LABELLED baskets to Room C67 (or C72),
Cartmel College, Lancaster University, or Dallas Road School, as soon
as possible.
Name________________________________
Tel No (work/home)____________________________
Child's class if at Dallas Rd _________________
Collect from University?
Collect from Dallas Rd School?
OR deliver to home address (within Lancaster) for an extra 50 p per delivery
Home address ___________________________________
________________________________________________
Please feel free to copy and circulate this form
------------------
FREE TENT: to an adventurous group and/or good cause An era of family
camping ends. Enormous 6 person 'Blacks' tent [with living section
enlarged 100%], first used 1975. In need of restoration to plastic and
rubber fittings, but canvas, stitching and poles are sound. Is very
heavy, so would suit a group with two people strong enough to lift it
and for team-work on construction !! Currently in an attic in Bristol
but transport north to Lancaster June/July possible. Contact
r.n.johnson@lancaster.ac.uk.
-------
HAVE YOU GOT WHAT IT TAKES TO 'BRING THE LOUNGE DOWN'?
The newly refurbished 'The Lounge' at the Yorkshire House is hosting a
comedy competition on Saturday 1st May 1999. The competition will take
the form of an open mike session and there are CASH PRIZES for the
winners. Interested comics should phone 01524 64679 for a place on the
bill. Visit the web site at www.yorkshirehouse.enta.net
--------------
For sale V reg automatic BMW. 20 years old but reliable. Taxed until
June '99, MOT until December '99. 350 pounds ONO.
h.armer@lancaster.ac.uk or ex.93686.
---------------
Need any electrical work doing? For complete rewires, extra sockets,
or any electrical job contact David Armer on 01524 791510 or mobile
0850 597 550. A high standard of work using quality materials.
---------------
TRANSLATION, INTERPRETING, TRANSCRIBING, PROOFREADING, CONFIDENTIAL
WORDPROCESSING (plus CV design): full-time all-year-round professional
service. Contact Lynda Burke at CASTLE TRANSLATIONS, tel. 841169 or
e-mail Lynda@Castletrans.free-online.co.uk
---------------------
HISTORY SEMINAR
Alan Wood (Lancaster)
'Guns, Grenades and Governments:
Political Assassinations in the History of Russia.'
The recent murder of St. Petersburg's leading liberal politician is
but the most recent of such violent interventions in Russia's history.
Alan will place it in its historical context.
Tuesday, 27th April (week 2),
4.30, Furness SCR.
---------------
5. FACTS, FACTOIDS AND FICTION
------------------------------
[NOTE: Some e-zone called Slackers Sunday Funnies entertains its
denizens by inviting them to decide what is true and what is false.
Readers confident that they can infallibly distinguish the two are offered
the following on which to test their judgement. (Ed.)]
A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
The "save" icon on Microsoft Word shows a floppy disk, with the
shutter on backwards.
The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways. The
following sentence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced,
thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after
falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."
The verb "cleave" is the only English word with two synonyms which are
antonyms of each other: adhere and separate.
The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter
is uncopyrightable.
Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order,
as does arsenious, meaning "containing arsenic."
Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian
coat of arms for that reason.
Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about
ten.
Camel's milk does not curdle.
An animal epidemic is called an epizootic.
Murphy's Oil Soap is the chemical most commonly used to clean
elephants.
The United States has never lost a war in which mules were used.
Blueberry Jelly Bellies were created especially for Ronald Reagan
All porcupines float in water.
Cat's urine glows under a blacklight.
Non-dairy creamer is flammable.
The airplane Buddy Holly died in was called "American Pie." (Thus the
name of the Don McLean song.)
The only nation whose name begins with an "A", but doesn't end in
an "A" is Afghanistan.
When opossums are playing 'possum', they are not "playing." They
actually pass out from sheer terror.
The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year
because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the
weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
If you toss a penny 10,000 times, it will not be heads 5,000 times,
but more like 4,950. The heads picture weighs more, so it ends up on
the bottom.
Hydroxydesoxycorticosterone and hydroxydeoxycorticosterones are the
largest anagrams.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
Duelling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered
blood donors.
A pig's orgasm lasts for 30 minutes.
The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which
stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your
thumb.
"Stewardesses" is the longest word that is typed with only the left
hand.
A group of unicorns is called a blessing. Twelve or more cows are
known as a "flink." A group of frogs is called an army. A group of
rhinos is called a crash. A group of kangaroos is called a mob. A group
of whales is called a pod. A group of ravens is called a murder. A
group of officers is called a mess. A group of larks is called an
exaltation. A group of owls is called a parliament.
The phrase "sleep tight" derives from the fact that early mattresses
were filled with straw and held up with rope stretched across the
bedframe. A tight sleep was a comfortable sleep.
The Sanskrit word for "war" means "desire for more cows."
111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
No words in the English language rhyme with month, orange, silver, and
purple.
Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people
without killing them used to burn their houses down - hence the
expression "to get fired."
6. READERS' LETTERS
-------------------
Question for InkyText. If you tied buttered toast to the back of a cat
and dropped it from a height, what would happen?
Marcus Duffy
[NOTE: Please tell us. I've watched Professor Ian Fell's programme on
the subject of statistics and dropping buttered toast, but I don't
recall the cat variable being introduced. (Ed.)]
-----------------------
Dr. Pollock's heraldry is somewhat faulty. A crest is that part of an
achievement of arms which surmounts the helm above the shield. The
university does have a crest but it would be most unlikely to be
recognised on its own. Also the Lord Lyon King of Arms has jurisdiction
only in Scotland and, to the best of my knowledge, Lancaster remains
English to the core.
The university originally made use of the shield of arms with its
motto, "Patet omnibus veritas" on most of the paraphernalia it
produced, and rather dignified it looked too! call me old-fashioned if
you like, but the idea of capital punishment for those who connived at
replacing it with the ghastly logo, and wasting resources in the
process, has a certain appeal.
Paul Johnston
(Bowland College 1965-8; History and Politics)
---------------------
Since Gerd Nonneman seems eager to compare the Israeli treatment of
Arabs in 1948 with the Serbian treatment of Kosovar Albanians in 1999,
perhaps he would like to fill out the 1948 picture by telling us all
about the treatment of Jews who for centuries, if not millennia, had
been living in dozens of Arab lands--a policy of dispossession,
imprisonment, terror, and killing that in some cases continues to this
day. Maybe he would also like to tell us all about the treatment of
displaced Palestinians in Arab lands.
Robert Segal
Department of Religious Studies
[NOTE: Now, now, now, now, now! I'm not going to allow wars of
religion in this journal, thank you. What was it I was saying last time
about responing to others with a bit more reason and less emotion? All
analogies are imperfect but may nonetheless illumine a point. Unless
the point you wish to make is that Serbian expulsions are somehow
justified by centuries of Islamic persecution I'm not sure why your
remarks should be relevant to the present war. If the intellectually
distinguished readers of this journal can't reason peacefully with each
other what hope is there? (Ed.)]
-------------------
I was shocked into reappraisal of the Kosovo situation by a statement
that Tony Benn made in parliament during the debate on Kosovo on Monday
19th April. I happen to have recently gained access to BBC Parliament
and was able to watch the entire debate live. (This is a service I
commend to everyone. When it is available to all the cause of democracy
will have been furthered in this country.)
Tony Benn stated, and with evidence, that the Serbian pariliament had,
one or two days prior to the bombing, expressed opposition to the
notion of a NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo, as part of a negotiated
settlement but distinct interest in a UN force composed of
approximately neutral nations.
This avenue of negotiation was not pursued by Western powers now
already somewhat fascinated, in the ancient sense, by the prospect of
bombing Belgrade. That was clearly a failing of international diplomacy
and we should ask our leaders to account for it when this conflict is
finally resolved.
Historians will argue long and hard about the Kosovo emergency, and
rightly so. We will never quite know, however, if that further step or
two along the diplomatic road might have secured a lasting peace for
all the people of Kosovo and Serbia. My opinion, influenced by a decade
of Milosovic's broken promises still leans to the view that it would
not have done so.
We might have had the satisfaction of gaining some form of
'legal' justification for the strikes and invasion which would have
followed approximately the pattern we have seen so far...but not, sadly,
much else.
I take no pleasure from such a conclusion. I am uneasy about the fact
that my conclusions are informed by a theory of diplomacy and warfare
that indulges in the personalizing of such matters...but it is
primarily Milosovic who has made the matter personal. Like all
dictators, and he is a dictator, his various electoral victories in
Serbia merely a function of a cod-democracy run along near-Soviet
lines, he himself has created a mythology and a cult rooted in the
history of his people and his own personality.
But the point that is unanswerable is that the majority of Albanians
in Kosovo really did want independence or true and substantial
autonomy. What people who would have had us negotiate till the cows
come home have to understand is that Milosovic was absolutely and
virulently opposed to anything approaching real autonomy. His
enthusiasm for negotiations lasted only so long as Western
autonomy proposals represented less self-determination than Kosovo had
under Tito. Once such proposals started to address real autonomy the
burnings and killings began. And, I submit, the planning for a
wholesale forced evacuation of the Albanian population from Kosovo also
began, to be implemented at first opportunity.
My current position then has shifted slightly. I think this present
undeclared war is not a just war because it is being waged, primarily
for unjust reasons. Not much is said now about NATO needing to maintain
'credibility' - it was said at every opportunity in the first week, now
our leaders realise that saying such things gives the game away and
have shut up.
[...]
Nick Bardsley
-------------------------
I've just read what is described as an 'Open Letter' from Belgrade. I
don't think that it is anything of the sort. An open letter is one that
can be read by anyone, and that potentially could have included the
thousands of people connected to the Internet whose home is in Kosovo.
Although no reference whatsoever is made to them by the letter, they
are people about whom the war is being fought, so it, and other similar
letters in other journals do relate to them. In the past month, most of
those that had connections to the internet have lost them, along with
everything else they had. There is no way for those people to read his
'open letter' where they are now.
The more I look at this man's letter, note his fine qualifications and
experience, and read the articles in his web site, the more I think
that academic or not, he must find things quite acceptable which have
sickened most people in Britain. His letter is not a quest for peace;
it is a ruthless statement of the Serbian position. I cannot imagine
why you have let this man drag your Lancaster University journal into
the Balkans conflict.
Michael Cowie
Knowledge Based Systems
[NOTE: I don't think I agree with any of that at all. His letter is
not so much a statement of a political position as an attempt to show
how Serbian academics (unsurprisingly) feel about the situation. They'd
probably find the passive acceptance of bombing by people around here
just as sickening. Tolerance means exposing yourself to the views of
people who violently disagree with you. (Ed.)
-------------------------------
Please will you convey my best wishes to Andrew (Andy) Errington &
Georgina (George) Brooks for their forthcoming marriage on 1st May and
their future life in California.
Tricia Corless
County College.
[NOTE: With pleasure, adding our own of course. Andy, famous for his
bunch of keys, helped write the code for Autoreg before being
headhunted by a Californian firm which had read his home page. (Ed.)]
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I thought you linguists might enjoy this:
CLINTON DEPLOYS VOWELS TO SERBIA, BOSNIA
Residents of Sjlbvdnz, Grzny To Be First Recipients.
Before an emergency joint session of Congress today, President Clinton
announced US plans to deploy over 75,000 vowels to the war zone. The
deployment, the largest of its kind in American history, will provide
the region with the critically needed letters A, E, I, O and U and is
hoped to render countless names more pronounceable.
"For six years, we have stood by while names like Ygrjvslhv and
Tzlynhr and Glrm have been horribly butchered by millions around the
world."
Clinton said Citizens of Grzny and Sjlbvdnzv eagerly await the arrival
of the vowels. "My God, I do not think we can last another day,"
TrszgGrzdnjkin, 44, said. "I have six children and none of them has a
name that is understandable to me or to anyone else."
Said Sjlbvdnzv resident Grg Hmphrs, 67: "With just a few key letters I
could be George Humphries. This is my dream."
The airdrop represents the largest deployment of any letter to a
foreign country since 1984. During the summer of that year, the US
shipped 92,000 consonants to Ethiopia, providing cities like Ouaouoaua,
Eaoiluae, and Aao with vital life- giving supplies of L's, S's and T's.
There is, as yet, no confirmation of the rumour that Clinton's next
target for assistance with pronunciation is Wales."
Roger Bray
Music
[NOTE: There will probably be someone to say it's in bad taste or that
humour isn't allowed in a war zone. (Ed.)]
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CLOSING INVESTMENT QUERY:
Who makes Cruise missiles and what is happening to their shares?