The language of Israeli journalism

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LRB · Yonatan Mendel: Diary
The Israeli army never intentionally kills anyone, let alone murders them – a state of affairs any other armed organisation would be envious of. Even when a one-ton bomb is dropped onto a dense residential area in Gaza, killing one gunman and 14 innocent civilians, including nine children, it’s still not an intentional killing or murder: it is a targeted assassination. An Israeli journalist can say that IDF soldiers hit Palestinians, or killed them, or killed them by mistake, and that Palestinians were hit, or were killed or even found their death (as if they were looking for it), but murder is out of the question. The consequence, whatever words are used, has been the death at the hands of the Israeli security forces since the outbreak of the second intifada of 2087 Palestinians who had nothing to do with armed struggle.

The IDF, as depicted by the Israeli media, has another strange ability: it never initiates, decides to attack or launches an operation. The IDF simply responds. It responds to the Qassam rockets, responds to terror attacks, responds to Palestinian violence. This makes everything so much more sensible and civilised: the IDF is forced to fight, to destroy houses, to shoot Palestinians and to kill 4485 of them in seven years, but none of these events is the responsibility of the soldiers. They are facing a nasty enemy, and they respond dutifully. The fact that their actions – curfews, arrests, naval sieges, shootings and killings – are the main cause of the Palestinian reaction does not seem to interest the media. Because Palestinians cannot respond, Israeli journalists choose another verb from the lexicon that includes revenge, provoke, attack, incite, throw stones or fire Qassams.


A (text) message to cyclists

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Text driver jailed for bike death
A motorist who was texting on her mobile phone when she hit and killed a cyclist has been sentenced to four years in prison. Coultas had earlier been found guilty at Southampton Crown Court of causing death by dangerous driving. The 25-year-old from Hythe, Hampshire, was banned from driving for five years. The cyclist, Jordan Wickington, 19, died from head injuries when he was struck by Kiera Coultas' car after he went through a red light in Southampton in February 2007.  Following the crash, Mr Wickington, of Netley, Hampshire, who had not been wearing a helmet, was taken to Southampton General Hospital where he later died.
The cyclists family said after the sentencing that they hoped his death would be a lesson for other drivers. Yeah, I agree. But there's is surely also another lesson here isn't there? One for cyclists?

  • When you are cycling you are a road user not a pedestrian.
  • Traffic signals apply to you just as they apply to cars.
  • Cars, vans and lorries are big dangerous pieces of machinery moving at speed so you might like to think about wearing a crash helmet.


The Daily Hyperbole, cluck, cluck!

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The campaign that changed the eating habits of a nation

 Boycott of battery chickens forces supermarkets to think ethically

Sales of factory-farmed chickens have slumped since a high-profile campaign raised awareness of the cruelty at the heart of the poultry industry and implored consumers to pay more to improve the animals' welfare.

In a victory for campaigners who have fought to expose the short and brutal lives of broiler birds, shoppers have bought millions more free-range and organic birds while leaving mass-produced chickens on the shelves. Sales of free-range poultry shot up by 35 per cent last month compared with January 2007, while sales of standard indoor birds fell by 7 per cent, according to a survey of 25,000 shoppers by the market research company TNS.
This is, of course, The Independent claiming some of the credit for 'changing the eating habits of a nation' and displaying an impressive graph to reinforce its claims. But further down the article are some real facts. Only 8% of chickens reared in the UK are 'free range'. That means that there are still 736,000,000 'standard' chickens being churned out yearly.

I think there is still some way to go before the Indie can substantiate its ludicrous claim, don't you?


If this is your bag...

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Latest News!
M&S to charge for plastic bags
Wednesday February 28 2008:

Retailer Marks and Spencer is hoping to spark a high-street revolution by charging food customers 5p for every plastic carrier bag they use.

M&S to charge for plastic bags
Tuesday November 6 2007:
 
Marks and Spencer is to introduce a 5p charge for plastic grocery bags in England, the company announced today.
And, of course, good old downmarket cheapskates Lidl have been charging for their plastic bags for years, not in an effort to save the planet but to save money so they can carry on keeping their prices low. And when you do buy a Lidl bag you get one that will last a lot longer than just the journey home.


Get Mr Power on the move

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MoFuse Instantly Converts Sites for the iPhone
MoFuse is a service that will take your website and instantly create a mobile version of it, sparing you the development costs of doing so by hand.

Today the company is announcing that it will now automatically create iPhone versions of sites in addition to the standard versions for dumbed down mobile browsers.

Starting immediately, when iPhone users browse to the MoFuse mobile version of a site, which can be placed at a subdomain, they will be presented a nicely formatted version for their swank handheld device.




Mobile Version of this site can be found at:  http://mikepower.mofuse.mobi/

Where did I see that article?

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Instapaper

This is just another reminder of a great little bookmarking application which is getting a lot of attention from  serious web guys. It is an utterly simple, very fast, 'read later' bookmark service which allows you to bookmark pages while you browse, using a browser bookmarklet. OK so there are tons of other, similar apps out there but do give Instapaper a try. It's not something to use for permanent archiving, there are no tags, folders or extracts. It's just a great way of storing interesting stuff you want to come back to later, when you have more time. I love it. Try it, you might just find it useful.

Cool new video web app

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VIDDIX is a new video platform that allows users to add all kinds of web content to their video timeline. This new video platform will enrich the online video experience in ways never before seen on the web. The panel on the left is used to display video. The VIDDIX upload system supports all sorts of raw formats and converts them to FLV for optimal web performance.The panel on the right is used to display the extra web elements that are connected to the video. These web elements can range from a simple text with links to full flash objects and forms.