Mazin Qumsiyeh

The best list of suggested action I've seen, from Bethlehem University science professor Mazin Qumsiyeh.

Subject: What can you do?

So far hundreds of civilians have been killed in Gaza. Five sisters in
one family, four other children in another home, two children on a
cart drawn by a donkey. Universities, colleges, police stations, roads,
apartment buildings were all targeted. The UN Special Rapporteur on
Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian areas issued a statement that
"The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip represent s evere and massive
violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva
Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and
in the requirements of the laws of war."

Twenty things to do to bring peace with justice:

1) First get the facts and then disseminate them. Here are some basic
background information
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://www.btselem.org%2Fenglish%2FGaza_Strip
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://electronicintifada.net%2Fv2%2Farticle4933.shtml
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://www.mepeace.org%2Fforum%2Ftopics%2Fthe-true-story-behind-this-war
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://www.unitedforpeace.org%2Fdownloads%2FIf%2520Gaza%2520falls.pdf

2) Contact local media. Write letters to editors (usually 100-150
words) and longer op-eds (usually 600-800 words) for local newspapers. But
also write to news departments in both print, audio, and visual media
about their coverage. In the US
You can find media listings in your country using search engines like
google

3) Organize and join demonstrations in front of Israeli and Egyptian
embassies or when not doable in front of your parliament, office of
elected officials, and any other visible place (and do media work for it).

4) Hold a teach-in, seminar, public dialogue, documentary film viewing
etc. this is straightforward: you need to decide venue, nature, if
any speakers, and do some publicity (the internet helps).

5) Pass out flyers with facts and figures about Palestine and Gaza in
your community (make sure also to mention its relevance to the audience:
e.g, US taxpayers paying for the carnage, increase in world
instability and economic uncertainty)

6) Put a Palestinian flag at your window.

7) Wear a Palestinian head scarf (Koufiya)

8) Wear Black arm bands (this helps start conversations with people)

9) Send direct aid to Gaza through the United Nations Relief and Works
Agency (UNRWA).
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://www.un.org%2Funrwa%2F

10) Initiate boycotts, divestments and sanctions at all levels and
including asking leaders to expel the Israeli ambassadors (an ambassador of
an apartheid and rogue state). See Palestinian call
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://electronicintifada.net%2Fv2%2Farticle10056.shtml

11) Work towards bringing Israeli leaders before war crime courts
(actions along those lines in courts have stopped Israeli leaders from
traveling abroad to some countries like Brigtai9n where they may face
charges)

12) Calling upon all Israelis to demonstrate in front of their war
ministry and to more directly challenge their government

13) Do outreach: to neighbors and friends directly. Via Internet to a
lot of others (you can join and post information to various
listservs/groups).

14) Start your own activist group or join other local groups (simple
search in your city with the word Palestine could identify candidate
groups that have previously worked on issues of Palestine). Many have also
been successful in at bringing coalitions from different
constituencies in their local areas to work together (human rights group, social and
civil activists, religious activists, etc).

15) Develop a campaign of sit-ins at government offices or other places
where decision makers aggregate

16) Do a group fast for peace one day and hold it in a public place

17) Visit Palestine

18) Support human rights and other groups working on the ground in
Palestine

19) Make large signs and display them at street corners and where ever
people congregate.

20) Contact local churches, mosques and other houses of worship and ask
them to take a moral stand.
--------------------

Gaza cartoon

Gee, a cartoon not by Marc Roberts. But by the indefatigable Latuff instead.

Gaza continues

The Israeli military atrocities in Gaza continue. The death toll nears 400.
Meanwhile, Obama 'monitors' and Brown has little twitches of conscience while figuring out which bank to nationalise next. In Tehran, Iranian Jews demonstrate for Palestine, and in Israel, Ha'aretz reports that the Israeli military has been cooking this up for months, during the 'ceasefire.'
It's very hard to know what to do here, of course. Yesterday, my first day properly out of bed after a week of 'flu, I took myself off to the vigil outside the BBC in Manchester. The previous day's demonstration apparently attracted maybe a couple of hundred, according to my friend Hannah. The vigil had perhaps 70. There will be one every evening that this continues, so I guess I'll be down there again tomorrow at 5pm before I head off to friend Ruth's to try and not be too much of a spirit of depression at the New Year party. And at 3pm on Saturday there will be a bigger demonstration.
It always amazes me that Palestinians in such appalling circumstances draw hope from what feel like the most tiny things we do here, but a text from my amazing friend Sharyn just after I sent her news of these two demonstrations and the bigger ones outside the Israeli embassy in London read as follows:
"Fatima is so happy telling her family what you just said. 10 people just gained some strength for this night under the bombs."
Of course I cried and felt inadequate. Doh.
What else to do? There's not much I can usefully write - my only attempt at getting into Gaza, 7 years ago, ended up with me in al-Hussain Hospital in Beit Jala, shot full of pethidine, thanks to a little altercation with the lovely Captain Joseph Levy of the Erez border crossing. I can draw on the words of friends - including Sharyn - who are there. I can help to spread Free Gaza movement press releases and the writings of those with useful things to say and reports from the ground, including Sameh Habeeb. I can keep making sure that the Free Gaza Facebook group stays up to date and also that the stupid, hateful, vile anti-semitism that Israel's stupid, hateful, vile actions engenders is not allowed to find its voice through any channel that I can stop up. And, I suppose, I can not give in to the grief and guilt that so many of us who have spent time in Palestine feel at not being there at this hour, and keep working in the ways that I can here, even if it's not there. But it feels so very little.

Eeeeuuuuwwwwhhhhh

Yuck. Don't know where Marc Roberts finds this stuff, but viewing his terrifyingly prolific output of cartoons does nothing for one's faith in humanity. Western Civilisation is decadent and muct be destroyed...

Israeli bombing in Gaza (and other Christmas happenings)

Well, Christmas is over - sort of - and the sales frenzy is busily creating a dead cat bounce in the UK economy. Harold Pinter is RIP. And the original Three Legged Cat has had a rather dramatic festive period, as a result of which he's now a three-legged, one-fanged cat.
And in Gaza, the Israeli airforce is reported on the BBC this morning to have killed 40 people and injured dozens more in bombing raids overnight. Accordingly, below is the full text of an email from an excellent Gazan reporter which I received last Friday, covering not the attacks but the general ongoing effects of the Israeli blockade.

For More Media Reportings and News Reports contact me on:
Mob: 00972599306096
Sameh.habeeb@gmail.com

Hunger before the storm
By: Sameh Akram Habeeb

Israeli politicians, in the run-up to elections, are promising to deal a severe blow to Gaza as this is how Israeli policy is made. However, every household in Gaza is already under siege. In Gaza you can only find pale, angry and frustrated faces. If you visit my house you won't find power, while my neighbor is out of gas. Another neighbor seeks potable water as power outages have left him without for four days. A third neighbor desparately looks for milk for his child but does so in vain. Another friend who lives on the corner needs medicine that can't currently be found in Gaza.

There is no shortage of such stories in Gaza (though there is a shortage of nearly everything else). Perhaps broadcasting such stories would result in pressure on Israeli leaders to stop the siege. Because what is happening is that the entire Gaza population of 1.5 million -- densely packed into a small area -- is being punished for crude rockets being fired into Israel by a few.

Shaher Mazen, 25, holds a degree in political science but works as a taxi driver to put bread on the table for his family. I spoke to him while I was on my way to some of the Gaza bakeries to cover some news that was happening there. Shaher was frustrated because of siege and furious towards the two rival Palestinian governments, considering them as weak in the face of Israel.

Mazen said, "We are under an organized Israeli media campaign. We are being starved and victimized by Israel. The world think we are besieging Israel, not the other way around. Israel is playing up the issue of rocket fire to besiege us more and more."

Al-Shanty bakery in Gaza City is one of the Strip's largest, supplying tens of thousands with bread. Yesterday, hundreds of people crowded outside the bakery in a very long queue, waiting for a bag of bread. Children, women and men were awaiting the chance to buy some bread, which has become scarce as Israel has not allowed the import of adequate supplies of flour and cooking gas.

"Our bakery is out of bread for days now and what we have will only last for another 24 hours. In fact, we stopped our work yesterday as we ran out of flour. Now, we use animal feed which will finish in a matter of hours," explained 24-year-old Abed Masod while he busily worked at the bakery.

A woman's voice arose above the crowd. She started to scream and appealed to God for salvation and relief from Gaza's dire situation. Forty-five-year-old Om Ali Shoman's weary face bore the impact of Gaza's suffering. "This is our destiny," she said. "It's a conspiracy designed against us. What did my children do to stay at home with no bread? Did they fire rockets? Did they kill Israelis? Are they holding guns?"

Only about a dozen of Gaza's 47 bakeries are currently operating as of yesterday, but with rapidly diminishing supplies. The UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) had to stop its food aid deliveries because Israel has not allowed it to replenish its stores. This affects 750,000 refugees in the Gaza Strip.

Gazans fear that the worst, however, is yet to come as the Israeli government renews its threats of a major offense against the Gaza Strip, irrespective of the civilian toll an invasion would inevitably incur.

Time is running out in Gaza and mass starvation looms as Gaza's skies are further darkened with threats of an Israeli military incursion. As a journalist, peace activist, and one of the hundreds of thousands of Gazans who are being collectively punished by Israel, I urge those who read this to appeal their governments to hold Israel accountable to international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, article 33 of which forbids the collective punishment of a civilian population. Though it unilaterally removed its illegal settlement population from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Israel has remained in control of Gaza's borders, sea and airspace, as well as its population registry, and remains the occupying power, and as such is obligated to abide by international humanitarian law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention.

I urge readers to press their governments to force Israel to respect the countless United Nations resolutions that affirm Palestinian rights, and which Palestinian leaders demand must be immediately implemented.

Please don't let Gaza's plight be forgotten, and urge those around you to act as well.

All photos in the link below by Sameh A. Habeeb:
http://picasaweb.google.com/sameh.habeeb/BakeriesOfGazaOutOfBreadPeopleAreHungry#

Sameh A. Habeeb is a photojournalist, humanitarian and peace activist based in the Gaza Strip, Palestine. He writes for several news websites on a freelance basis.

Contact me:

Sameh A. Habeeb, B.A.
Photojournalist & Peace Activist
Humanitarian, Child Relief Worker
Gaza Strip, Palestine
Mob: 00972599306096
Tel: 0097282802825
E-mail: Sam_hab@hotmail.com
Sameh.habeeb@gmail.com
Skype: Gazatoday, Facebook: Sameh A. habeeb
Web: www.gazatoday.blogspot.com
Daily Photos:http://picasaweb.google.com/sameh.habeeb

More on the TIF

Why do I even bother writing anything without checking whether Marc Roberts has already done a cartoon on the subject?
Sigh.

Swings and roundabouts

It's always nice to get good feedback on work, and even nicer when it's public and from the excellent Coolerchoice environmental blog. They've posted a positive review of my Ethical Consumer magazine report on the environmental and human rights records of Premiership football clubs.
Between the content of the article and the comments, it was also heartening to see some decent debate going on about the whole issue of making football ethical. There are plenty of campaigns on this, from the rejection of corporate control of football clubs by supporters via organisations like Supporters Direct, to revelations of the outrageously small wages (in some case well below the minimum wage) paid by many Premiership clubs to low-ranking employees, whilst top-rank footballers take home sums beyond most people's wildest dreams.
Some attacks on the idea of considering ethics alongside football - such as on Indymedia - have suggested that this is just another example of middle-class environmentalists interfering in working-class culture.
I'd reject that on two grounds: one, that plenty of working-class football supporters have political, environmental and social consciences and to suggest that giving a toss about the environment is solely a middle-class trait is pretty offensive, and two, it discounts that fact that when things go pear-shaped environmentally, it's people on low incomes and with no political clout who get properly shafted - see for instance Friends of the Earth's work mapping pollution in the UK onto low income areas. Golly gee, middle-class people don't get dirty factories and particulate-clouded bypasses built next to their gardens. Next stop, the revolution.
Well, however much of a warm fuzzy feeling I might have got from that nice review, it's done little to overcome my general sense of fury, disappointment, disgust and lots of other negative emotions at the killer combination of stupidity and selfishness which has caused the population of Greater Manchester to reject the TIF bid. So, we've got some of the shitest public transport in Europe, but no, lets reject £3 billion in investment so that a load of middle-class idiot commuters in Cheshire Tractors are free to spend hours sitting stationary on Princess Parkway every morning.
You bloody morons. Especially you so-called lefties who've campaigned against the Yes vote. Worried about the 'state tracking'? Well get rid of your mobile phone before you whinge about your car. Worried about 'working class people who can't afford to get into work in the morning'? Bullshit: you're worried about your own privileged car-driving lifestyles. You just have to look at the demographics of public transport use to see that it's not the comfortable middle class that would have benefited from better buses, trams, trains and cycling and pedestrian routes. And as for the scum at Peel Holdings; well, it just adds to the myriad reasons why Peel is beneath the underneath of the belly of contempt.
Rant over. I'll just go and seethe some more in peace.

Manchester climate change essay competition

Essay contest: What do we do next?
"What are the current problems/future opportunities for climate campaigners in Greater Manchester"
First Prize- £30
Runners Up- to be confirmed
Deadline Sunday 1st February 5pm
entries to editor@manchesterclimatefortnightly.info
Winner announced on Tuesday February 10th at the "Climate Change: Global and Local" meeting hosted by Manchester Climate Forum. Friends Meeting House, 6 Mount St
More information from http://www.manchesterclimatefortnightly.info

RIP Oliver Postgate

Sad news this morning, although well into his 80s I guess Oliver Postgate had had a decent run at life, and possibly is checking out at a good time, a decade or so before things go really tits up.
Anyway, this is just the product of a desire to pay tribute not just to his wonderful children's programmes (I remember with particular love Bagpuss, Ivor the Engine, the Clangers and Noggin the Nog) but also his staunch political stands - on climate change, on pacifism, and on unpopular topics such as the idea that the West should buy up the Afghan poppy crop to take it out of the hands of the world's various drug barons whilst also giving Afghan farmers a livelihood.

No comment needed

Language and journalistic arrests in Israel

Outgoing Israeli PM Ehud Olmert made an interesting choice of words the other day when talking about the appalling violence Hebron's community of extremist religious Jewish settlers have been inflicting on the city's Palestinian inhabitants. Speaking of footage of settlers opening fire on unarmed people, he used the word 'pogrom.'
Not a term used lightly by anyone in Israel, and certainly not by a Jewish Israeli of the oppression of a West Bank Palestinian. Certainly not a term that a goy (and yes, I have been called that in Israel, to my face, and on one occasion by a child who must have been all of seven years old) like me would be allowed to use of these settlers' action without howls of 'anti-semite!'
And another interesting event to note amidst the horror of events in Hebron and Gaza, Ha'aretz newspaper reports that the heroic Israeli journalist Amira Hass was arrested leaving Gaza via the Erez border crossing and questioned by Sderot police. Hass has spent much of the last ten years living in Gaza or Ramallah, one of the few Israelis to do so, and her writings, including the books Drinking the Sea at Gaza and Reporting from Ramallah, should be required reading (alongside Robert Fisk) for, well, pretty much anyone really.

Another work of genius from Marc Roberts

I was going to post something ranty about press coverage of the Plane Stupid Stansted action today. And certainly the BBC R4 lunchtime coverage was typically shite, in its usual style of 'let's give unlimited space to Michael O'Leary to talk drivel and not address any of the substantive issues at all.' But Marc Roberts has covered pretty much everything else I'd want to say.

The Guardian on writing for the internet

Now here's an interesting piece on writing for the internet, and how to go about pushing a website up the ratings not by filling it with rubbish that's searched for a lot ('Britney Spears naked' etc) but by the quality and quantity of links to it.
Michael Wignall at Streamengine does great short workshops on how to do combine writing in a search-engine-friendly way, as well as one that's attractive to website readers.

BBC in tedious old fool shocker

Well golly gee, looks like the BBC has been letting its misinformed old farts talk bollocks again. Why do the likes of the hugely tedious Peter Sissons get to interview anyone who actually knows their stuff? The case in point being his interview today with Green MEP Caroline Lucas, in which he was peddling the stunningly outdated line that there is a genuine scientific question over anthropogenic climate change. No Peter, there isn't, and there hasn't been in twenty years. There are just a few left of a dying swarm of well-funded lobbyists who are still trying to get idiots like him to cover their frankly genocidal ideas. Why do I pay my licence fee again?

All the men should leave now...

Today is the 19th anniversary of the shooting dead of 14 young women and injuring of 14 more people at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec. Marc Lepine shot the women because, he said, he was 'fighting feminism' and they were engineering students.
Women get beaten, raped and killed all over the world for asking for their right to be human beings, and it's usually done by men. I'm not arguing that men are intrinsically worse or more violent, but I am arguing that we've created societies that encourage them to be that way, and that now they are being challenged in their power some of them seem to find it legitimate to fight back in violent and horrible ways. It's also why it pisses me off that idiots like Fathers for Justice get so much coverage for their whingings about male rights; yes, there are a few men out there unjustly separated from their children, and there's an awful lot justly separated because statistically men are much more likely to be the ones beating their wives or partners and abusing their children. The press goes crazy when a Karen Matthews does something terrible to her child (at least the child is still alive...) but apparently men sitting in cars gassing themselves and their kids so their wives/mothers can't 'have them' attracts pretty brief comment nowadays. I don't see the Sun giving them front page spreads with 'pure evil' headlines...

Message from the campaign to stop the Deportation of Hicham Yezza

Below is the text of a message regarding the threatened deportation of Hicham Yezza. Hicham was an administrator at the University of Nottingham who helped print off material about al-Qaeda from a US government website for a friend who was using it for his academic research. With the racism endemic amongst the British public and police, Hicham and his friend were both arrested and questioned for nearly a week before being released without charge. However, Hicham was told that there were 'irregularities' in his immigration status and was told that he wouldn't be charged if he would leave the UK quietly. He refused, and now the immigration service is even sinking to cancelling court proceedings to try and turf him out quickly and quietly. Freedom of speech and knowledge - but only if you're white, apparently.

Legal developments and the home office - we need your help!!
To members of Global Support to Stop The Deporation of Hicham Yezza

November 27 at 1:11pm
Reply
Dear friends,

Thank you all for your continuing support throughout the previous months of hard campaigning. Together we have already achieved an extraordinary level of success in stopping the initial deportation and bringing the Home Office actions to the attention of the national and international media.

Last Wednesday, on the 19th November, Hicham was due to attend a hearing regarding the alleged charges that formed the basis of his attempted deportation in June This is precisely what the campaign demanded: a chance for Hicham to fight his case in a court of law (As you might already be aware, Hich was offered the chance back then to have the charges dropped against him in exchange for quietly leaving the country but refused).

However, in an extraordinary and highly unexpected move, the Home Office announced on the EVE of the trial that it had decided to reject Hicham's right to stay in the U.K and, even more incredibly, have announced that he would only be given till Tuesday 2nd of December (in five days!) before being LIABLE TO BE DEPORTED from the country.

In other words, the Home Office has opted to assume Hicham is guilty rather than let a court of law decide. Hicham's solicitors have called the decision (and its timing) a clear attempt at "psychological warfare" in order to unsettle Hicham before the hearing and to intimidate him into giving up.

We believe this act and its timing to be clearly unfair and highly indicative of the political nature of Hicham's persecution by the Home Office. We are committed to fighting this decision by lodging an appeal before Tuesday and we ask you to help us in every way you can.

In particular, we are in urgent need for people to donate to Hicham's legal fund. Hicham has been prevented by the Home Office from returning to work and is entirely dependant on the campaign's support for financial support. We are currently aiming to raise five thousand pounds to ensure Hich can fight his case properly. We are still applying for access to legal aid in order to lessen this burden but we cannot count on this and need to ensure we are ready for all eventualities.

Please, if you can, log onto your online banking and donate TEN pounds (or whatever it is you can afford) to the campaign bank account. With a collective effort, we can give Hicham the opportunity to fight his case in a fair and just manner.

Please click www.freehicham.co.uk for details of how to donate as well as other ways of helping out (including template letters to the Home Office).

Please continue to spread the word and inform all your friends and colleagues about the campaign.

Many Thanks

The Free Hich Campaign

Website: www.freehicham.co.uk

Email: staffandstudents@gmail.com

A work of pure genius

As someone who occasionally needs to resize photos for work purposes but has no desire to learn (or to shell out for) Photoshop, and who hasn't yet managed to figure out how to resize or crop pictures using the various opensource graphics programmes, I was very, very happy to discover DrPic. That rare thing, a really useful website...

Surviving winter in freelance-land

This spring, I moved from being a part-time employee and part-time freelancer to being a full-time freelancer. I joined the pyjama workforce, that band of people who can be shamed at any time of the day by a postman turning up with a parcel, only to find them unshowered and wearing worn plaid jammies or a threadbare dressing gown.
A few months later I decided that this lifestyle is psychologically unhealthy, at least for me, and joined a shared workspace co-op called Openspace. First and foremost this provides flexible work packages ranging from full membership (£100 a month for a desk, some storage space, high speed internet, some blog space on a shared website and use of other shared facilities such as a printer and secure backups) to the ability to just drop in with your laptop once or twice a month to get a change of scene or a reliable web connection.
Openspace also fits into my work and concerns nicely by being a social enterprise (by virtue of its not-for-profit, co-operative status) and its commitment to environmental and social functions such as recycling, using recycled products and green electricity and providing a networking point for other social and ethical enterprise.
Now I've been a member for several months, I thought it was time to evaluate whether this was a good decision, and decided that actually it's probably been close to a life-saver.
As winter draws in and daylight hours get unspeakably and depressingly short, dragging myself outside during the daytime would have been really hard to do regularly as pyjama-me. Somehow actually getting my arse in gear by 3pm or whenever it's getting dark at the moment seems like a massive effort when I don't actively HAVE to. But the bike ride down to Openspace forces me to get outside and get a bit of sunshine and exercise, and that's a very, very good thing for my mental wellbeing.
Secondly, one of the unexpected benefits of Openspace – even to its founders – has been the quantity of cross-fertilisation of work and projects that has come out of it. People have submitted bids together, developed artistic projects and generally passed round useful information about economic opportunities. With the credit crunch and looming economic nightmare of the next year or so, opportunities that I wouldn't have known about but for being in a shared space have made my financial situation that much more stable, at least for the moment.
Working at Openspace comes easier too, especially when I've got a big deadline looming – I'm pretty good at keeping my self-discipline going when it comes to deadlines, but my bathroom does tend to get suddenly cleaner and my kitchen floor washed when I've got a big one coming up. But being in a workspace somehow forces me to get my head down and get on with it, and that makes me that more productive.
A final small benefit has been that as the weather gets colder, it's nice to be able to head off to the office, where it's nice and warm, instead of staying at home, having to put the heating on at some eye-popping cost in fuel bills. Yes, I know I should wrap up in more jumpers, but there's only so many I can actually fit on, and if I'm going to work (ie type) my fingers still need to be out there in the air and not seized up from the cold. The cats are pissed off though – fewer nice hot radiators to weld themselves onto.
There's only one lovely Openspace, in Manchester, but I know that Edinburgh has the Melting Pot and the Hub network has places in a number of cities worldwide, including London and Bristol in the UK. And similar, if less ethically-oriented, setups can often be found by Googling terms like 'shared workspace' or 'co-working' for your town.

Fascists, fascists everywhere...

Well, who'da thunk it. Someone in the BNP has leaked their entire membership list and posted it on a Blogspot page. Given that coppers now get fired for this, and it is somewhat frowned upon in certain other professions represented - like teachers and nurses - I guess a few fash will be sweating for their jobs tonight. I'm sure their trade union reps will be sobbing in sympathy. Or not. A few posh types too - like former Chief Inspectors. Surely, old chap, one should just lurk on the more objectionable end of the Tory party with the other inbreds, not actually slum it with the skin'ead hoi polloi.
Hehehehe.
Interesting, though, to see the mainstream media take on it - absolutely loving it, but not quite daring to pop up a link to the actual site.

Writing course at Gorton Monastery

For anyone foolish enough not to be coming to ChomskyAt80, here's a quick plug for a writing course on the 29th November, bring run by Hyde freelancer Andrea Wren. I don't know Andrea well, but we met a few times at the late lamented ConnectMedia NorthWest get-togethers and she could certainly teach aspiring feature writers a thing or two about how to market themselves.

Another act of genius

Another act of genius from Marc Roberts. Oh, and as I omitted to mention last time I posted one of his cartoons, they've been popping up in all sorts of cool places, like Ethical Consumer magazine, New Internationalist and Realclimate.org, the kind of place journalists should be going for information on dangerous climate change rather than publicity-seeking Scandinanvian eejits with spurious credentials for talking about anything but themselves. Thank goodness for some decent research, like this. But then there's often a disturbing similarity between your average wordcount-padder when faced with a rampant self-publicist telling them something they want to hear, and a rabbit caught in headlights...

Reporting Poverty in the UK

Last Wednesday was the Manchester launch of Reporting Poverty in the UK, a guide for journalists based on research carried out by Glasgow Caledonian University.
The research looked at how the British press talks about poverty, and while perhaps not a surprise to someone with my attitude to the ethics of the mainstream press in this country, it did include some depressingly good illustrations of the way that some journalists think.
One illuminating quote from the editor of a national tabloid was along the lines of: "Fuel poverty is not a story. Poor people fiddling their gas meters is a story." So - thousands of people freezing in their homes over the winter isn't interesting, and fuel companies making massive profits off huge price rises isn't interesting, but a tiny and unrepresentative number of poor people finding ways to get round that is a valid subject for prurient, judgemental prying. What a delightful society we are.
A more comforting comment was from an anonymous female tabloid reader, who said something akin to 'I read the News of the World but I don't believe anything in it - not even the TV listings.'
The actual launch event, run by funders the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Media Trust, was excellent (and not just because of the really good lunch, much better than the somewhat suspect sarnies usually on offer. And a decent veggie selection).
With a reasonable balance of journalists and people from a wide range of organisations tackling poverty or working in marginalised areas (like Carisma from Home Sweet Home, Moss Side), there were some really active debates about how third sector organisations, especially those with tiny PR resources and budgets, can relate to the media, how they can protect their members and service users when journalists turn up wanting case studies, and how journalists can behave in a slightly more ethical and honourable fashion, respecting people whose life circumstances have put them in poverty.
Discussions raised issues like why the press seems to feel the need to stereotype and insult poor people - is it so that the better-off can deny to themselves that they might be benefiting from an unequal system? And is the kind of understanding and improvement in reporting that the event and report are trying to achieve eroded by developments in the media industry itself, where it seems to be increasingly difficult to get an entry into national-level newspapers and magazine without spending weeks or months doing unpaid internships. And who gets to do those in London, a ludicrously expensive city to work in? Rich, usually white, kids. Increasing yet more the distance between journalists and the people and communities they talk about. So, all the more need for people to take a look at the Media Trust/JRF guide, and try to absorb some of its lessons.

Cantankerous Frank gets arrested as an eco-terrorist

Marc Roberts is a genius Manchester-based cartoonist with a a big heart, lots of common sense and a stunning capacity for bile and vitriol regarding the many ways various human systems and organisations are fucking up the Earth. He's also terrifyingly prolific, and this evening's cartoon is a particularly marvellous comment on the state of the planet.

The Onion sez it again

Best bits of US election analysis I've seen so far...
"Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job"
and
"Nation Finally Shitty Enough to Make Social Progress"

4th November 2008

God, I hate US elections.
I hate being stuck on the other side of the Atlantic not being able to participate usefully in something which is going to affect the whole world so profoundly.
I hate that I end up with wishy-washy liberal sympathies for politically horrible Democrat candidates just because they're less obviously maniacally dangerous than the Republican version, even though in the end I know they'll be equally vile on most of the issues that matter, and even if they're not all the other vested interests will scupper anything worthwhile they might do.
I hate how furious I end up being at the American population for electing murderous fucking nutters, and how on one level I know that there are so many people who are disenfranchised and maybe they'd have voted differently (although part of me can't help suspecting that The Onion was right on the button here). But the other part of me is just thinking YOU BASTARDS ELECTED BUSH - TWICE!
And I hate that the media seems to have nothing else to report (except for BBC talentless waste-of-oxygen celebs saying stupid things) when there are so many things going on in the world, but to people who don't have power/money/their own radio show.

Meeja whinging

As a media freelance who occasionally crosses the divide between PR and journalism - as seems increasingly common - I appreciate that the PR's job is not always a happy one. But Cake PR of London seem to be taking it out on muggins, the hapless freelance on the receiving end of their less-than-impeccable competence.
Nearly 3 months ago, I went on a PR trip to the Lake District organised by Cake on behalf of fair trade fruit company Agrofair. The trip went fine, but because of the short notice I paid for my own train and taxi fares, which totalled over eighty quid. The following week I sent my tickets and receipts and an invoice into the PR girlie at Cake who I'd been dealing with. She acknowledged receipt and said she'd get the cash sent asap.
Have I seen that cash yet? Have I buggery. Maybe in smug London PR-land eighty pounds is small change, but in Northern freelance land it's a fair wad on spending money, and I want it back. The rude cow has even stopped replying to emails, and the accounts department don't seem to know what I'm on about, which seems to imply that she hasn't even registered the claim.
So, warning to fellow freelances etc. Avoid Cake PR. And to fair trade companies wanting to operate ethically, avoid them too, if you're as interested in freelance journalists not getting screwed over as you are in just treatment for majority world farmers.
Ho hum.

School in Hebron

"Waiting"

Waiting is Donna Baillie's film about the trials of getting to school if you're a Palestinian kid in Hebron - and if it wins the Babelgum film festival $10,000 will go to those very kids. Take a look!

We're doomed, I tell you...

You'd think that being shacked up with a climate change obsessive, spending your working life researching evil corporate behaviour, being politically engaged with the fate of Palestine and playing mother to a bulimic three-legged cat would induce a level of hopelessness about the state of the world that couldn't get any lower.
You'd be wrong.
In one of my normally mind-numbing days being pimped out to do research for Supposed Ethical Corp, yesterday I got sent off to look up stats on food security. It took only a couple of hours of reading reports like Chatham House's 'UK Food Supply: Storm Clouds On The Horizon' and the Cabinet Office's 'Food: an analysis of the issues' to convince me that not only are we doomed on this front (as well as the ice caps melting, blah blah) but that as a species we bloody well deserve to be. Global grain stores halved in thirty years - because it costs too much to stash. Scary amounts of agricultural land worldwide irreversibly degraded. Chinese per capita meat consumption increased by two-and-a-half-times in twenty years. And official proposals to address the problem seem to include joys such as another shot at persuading us all that GM food is a great idea, really.
Oh boy, we are so fucked.

Further horrors from the Hate Mail

Oops! Another stupid Hate Mail hack has the idiocy to send this round via press /PR service Responsesource. I guess she'll be closing down that AOL account soon...

——-Original Message——- From: rsreply@dwpub.com [mailto:rsreply@dwpub.com] Sent: 13 February 2008 15:57 To:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Response Source - Diana Appleyard , Daily Mail (Request for personal case study)

PUBLICATION: Daily Mail (Request for personal case study)
JOURNALIST: Diana Appleyard (staff)
DEADLINE: 14-February-2008 16:00
QUERY: I am urgently looking for anonymous horror stories of people who have employed Eastern European staff, only for them to steal from them, disappear, or have lied about their resident status. We can pay you £100 for taking part, and I promise it will be anonymous, just a quick phone call. Could you email me asap? Many thanks, Diana

HOW TO REPLY:
Email: mailto:dianaappleyard@aol.com
Phone: not provided for use
Fax: 01296 738083 (preferred)