This week, after thinking it might be a good idea to drink some cider for a change (it wasn’t), my postcard may well ramble more than usual…..
It has been quite a week. An ignorant bigoted self styled pastor managed to attract world wide interest and the attention of the President of The United States for his offensive plan to hold a ‘Koran Burning’ session. I commented on this in a post yesterday but I would like you to have a look at this wonderful post on 9/11 if you haven’t already seen it from Meg Cabot. It is a strong piece of writing about 9/11
With the Pope on his way…. Geoffrey Robertson QC, Richard Dawkins and a host of others wanting to arrest/criticise/vilify him… I thought I would balance things up a bit with this wonderful movie which I heard about tonight on Twitter…
This is fun if you like a bit of Papal Bull (via @Colmmu) http://youtu.be/i6ULDSNf87A “Twat in the Hat”
Put the pope in the dock
Geoffrey Robertson QC: Legal immunity cannot hold. The Vatican should feel the full weight of international law
I enjoy twitter. I enjoy social media and, obviously, I enjoy blogging. Are people one comes across on twitter and through comments on blogs any less real because it is an online experience? I don’t think so – and certainly not for those I have met, podcasted with or talked to over the telephone as a result of meeting them online. I would even say that others I tweet with regularly are ‘real’ in the sense – whether I agree with them or not – that they interest me and I look forward to reading their latest thoughts on twitter. Suzanne Moore summed it up rather well in her Daily Mail column.
Charles Christian, who I have known for many years – has another side to his life….here is a tweet from earlier this evening… (I did offer to be a dysfunctional Rioja drinking walk on… so… maybe?)
This is @ChristianUncut’s tweet: Latest episode of my diary of a novel: I’m now turning all my major characters into deeply flawed human beings. http://bit.ly/boxVJY
Many will write about Lord Bingham who died yesterday. I think his words are a more powerful obituary than the many being written – and I am confident that those who write will not be offended by my comment, for their obituaries are strong and honestly written. My own post is here.
A remarkable man – but I chose his penetrating statement about the Iraq war as one of countless thoughts he had, expressed in talks, lectures, books and judgments, to sum up his remarkable contribution to British life and not just legal history, but our history. Afua Hirsch writes in The Guardian…and I quote…
In his own book, released this year, Bingham described the text of the Magna Carta, with its “no free man shall be seized or imprisoned or stripped of his rights or possessions … except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land” as having the power “to make the blood race.”
“These are words which should be inscribed on the stationary of the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office, in place of the rather vapid slogans which their letters now carry,” Bingham said.
I can certainly run with that… I suspect most people can and do….. let us hope government, of whatever complexion, does too.
Difficult to follow that, so I won’t.
Have a good week
Best, as always
Charon
I have read two articles by Suzanne Moore in The Mail today… and agreed with them both.
It’s quite discombobulating finding myself agree with something in the Daily Mail!
NotEvsie – Yes.. Suzanne Moore usually has interesting and clever things to say… I don’t read the Mail… but always enjoy Suzanne’s posts – and she engages with tweeters on twitter…. fun!
She doesn’t come across as the usual Mail journo… that is fo shure 🙂
i can’t think of anything original to say about bingham, but it’s great when you are a world-weary 40-something and you can find a new hero. as i was beginning to study law, time and again his words made my own heart race. we were lucky to have him.
SW – We were… there are others on the bench today though…. no need to name them….
SW – Don’t be “world weary” at the mere age of “40 something”. The best must yet to be.
I liked how Bingham challenged the anti-human rights brigade. “Which of those rights would you give up?”. Excellent and to the point.
i just can’t see him voting for these feckers.
another reason to love him.
As a Scots lawyer(ish), one is always left standing about awkwardly when our southern neighbours launch into Rumpolesque perorations invoking Magna Carta and “our” ancient liberties. I find the best response is to stare into space and folk tend to assume that you are overcome with the civic dignity of it all and just too cast iron to dab a fond tear from your rheumy eye. That said, it is certainly one of the more attractive dynamics in the English tradition which gets overlooked at times – not least by my fellow Scots. As for those of us north of the Tweed, let our rousing motto be this –
“We Scots will cling to our ancient want-of-liberties to the last ditch!”