The Starrenburg’s Website

There are times when you read about, or see, disparate (different) pieces of information, which then connect in your mind and lead to a new idea or conclusion.

This, for me, was an example of one of those times.

Firstly - we see reported on the web (on the website of a mainstream media (or “MSM”) organisation) an article about American media vs the blogs. I am more interested in the mechanism and dynamics of what happened rather than the content, sad as it was. The article on the BBC website basically was looking at the differences in ‘reporting’ between mainstream media and bloggers, using the discussion on comments made by Eason Jordan about American military “targetting” (killing) journalists in Iraq as the basis for the article. A blogsite Eastongate.com was quickly put up by one group to air the view of the persons who objected to Mr Jordan’s alleged comments at Davos. Note that I said “the view of the persons” not ‘the views of the bloggers’. The blog was essentially a (very effective one it seems) tool for people, not ‘bloggers’, to express their strong disagreement of Mr Jordan’s comments. They could have picketed the CNN offices, and a few by passers may have noticed; they could have got on American national television, and be quickly forgotten because of television viewer’s typically short attention span; or they could have setup a weblog, they made the weblog. Mr Jordan resigned. Whether as a result of the blog swarm which drove the MSM media crazy or not we don’t know - but resigned he has.

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You know the image… it’s from one of the defining movies of the late twentieth century - Dr. Strangelove. The actor Slim Pickins plays the pilot of a B52 nuclear attack bomber ‘a hoopin’ and ‘a hollerin’ as he rides a nuclear bomb down to blow the hell out of “them Ruskies” as if he’s riding a bucking steer at a Texas rodeo. For those of you not familiar with this North American folk custom Wikipedia can help explain it to you.

You may have been reading in the news recently about the recent exchanges between Iran and America (with Russia getting in on the act also now, but that’s another story…) where Iran Warns U.S. Not to Play with Nuclear ‘Fire’ (Update - Reuters has removed this story from their website). Since then there has been a depressingly predictable unfolding of events - America sending over spy drone planes, Iran threatening to shoot them down, and Bush denying that they intend to attack or invade Iran to stop Iran’s nuclear (weapons) program. However in that very same statement Bush also said “you never want a president to say never.”

I don’t know who scares me more - Bush or the “mad” mullahs et al. Both claim, in their own way, to have that most fervently claimed, but most abused of ‘rights’ - divine right. Most worryingly, both seem equally assured that they know what is ‘right’ for the rest of us. The rest of us, I suspect, just wish they would both go away. They’re like the ‘neighbours from hell’, you know the type.

However back to the picture of Slim Pickins, playing the gung ho Texan waving his ten gallon hat as he rides down to oblivion on the bomb, which prompted me thinking about this in the first place. I just can’t get away from the thought that the person with his ‘finger on the button’ is also a Texan… fond, no doubt, of ten gallon hats.