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Add one part satire to two parts sincerity. Sprinkle on a couple of rants. Stir liberally.
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Who are you?
I'm the newly-appointed Future editor at Business 2.0 and the former San Francisco correspondent for Time Magazine.
Wow, so does this mean everything you write reflects Time Inc's opinion? Or do you perhaps have some sort of standard disclaimer to the effect that it doesn't?
Naturally, the opinions contained in this blog are not those of my employers. In fact, some opinions may be the polar opposite of my employers. Some may be the same, for all I know. Hey, it's not like I ask my employers their opinions about everything in the news, okay? Let's just say that if this were a Venn diagram with one circle marked "my opinions" and the other one marked "my employers' opinions", there would doubtless be some overlap. But neither I nor my employers are able to pinpoint exactly where that overlap is.
What is this Daily Blah thing?
An experiment for a column I wrote about blogging back in December 2001. All these years later, I haven't been able to kick the habit.
If it's called Daily Blah, how come you don't ... hey, wait, you're writing every day!
See? Told you I'd try harder.
Mister, you talk funny. Are you one of them furrners?
Why yes I am, as it happens. I was born, raised and educated in Great Britain. I've been living in the U.S. since 1996 and identify as British.
I say, old chap, you forgot the "u" in "colour."
No I didn't. I may identify as British, but I am also an American journalist writing for an American audience about mostly American issues. These two different sides of me are a constant source of tension. Nevertheless, Daily Blah will adhere to American English grammar and spelling.
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Daily Blah for... Monday, January 05, 2004
Land of the Brave, Home of the Thumb-Printed
Spent Christmas week on a flying visit to my family in the north of England -- and on my return, Homeland Security stormtroopers had me interrogated, strip-searched, thumb-printed and buttocks photographed. No, not really, but I shudder to think what will happen next time I reenter the Land of the Free. Assuming my plane is even allowed to touch its hallowed tarmac.
Needless to say, the thumb-printing scheme introduced yesterday at airports left a seriously bad taste in my mouth. Sure, I'm British, so I'm on the exempted list (for now). As a compliment, it slots into the same category as the fact that Nazi Germany considered us second only to the Aryan race. The exempted list, you will notice, consists of countries with majority Caucasian residents. "We want to catch the bad guys," I heard some Congresswoman -- a Democrat, for crying out loud -- tell the TV news last night. Well, if this scheme were really trying to catch the bad guys, they'd fingerprint us Brits too. Remember Richard Reid? Shoe bomber? British citizen? Hello? Terrorism is porous; it doesn't obey lines of national citizenship. There are no inherently "good" countries. The next terrorist attack could easily be perpetrated by an American citizen. So what's the one thing we could do to play into Al-Qaeda's hands? Become a police state. That, never forget, is exactly what Osama predicted we'd be forced to become after 9/11. So far, he's right on the money.
To put it bluntly, the thumb-printing scheme does nothing but accustom Americans to the idea of dark-skinned foreigners being treated like common criminals. Naturally, this does not do wonders for international diplomacy. Brazil, in a fit of pique, has already begun thumbprinting Americans who touch down at Brazilian airports. Canada, meanwhile, is hopping mad that US authorities chose to deport an innocent Canadian citizen to Syria -- where he hadn't lived for 15 years -- to face questioning, and torture, by the Syrian secret police. You can't make this stuff up.
Could Ridge, Ashcroft et al try a little harder to make America look like a police state, please? I don't think everyone in the world has got the message just yet. There are a couple of Bushmen in the Kalahari who haven't yet caught the whiff of racist fascism emanating from our borders.
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