I kind of promised myself a while back that I wouldn’t write too much political stuff in this blog…or maybe I should say not too much nonscientific political stuff… I avoided commenting Mr Padilla, Guantanamo or Iraq although I had some thoughts regarding moral and the kind of actions people and their governments now assume one can do in the name of freedom and security.
I also avoided talking about things I found particularly frightening and annoying in the EU when the talk was mainly about the national parties gaining ground, Islam, Christianity, libertarianism and of course, the right not to be included in society.
Well, now I have to say something simply because this annoys me. In Seattle Times, and I realize now that it is an old issue from mid November, they report that “hunger” is exchanged for “low food security”. Sure it is only in the States, in the governmental papers, but still…. When talking about poor people. Sure I can see the somewhat need of distinguish between people having now food at all and people having almost no…. No I can’t. Sorry. Sometimes I feel that the need for new words and things really does not help with the real problems we’ve got. But hey, newspeak isn’t bad all the time now, is it?
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003432992_hunger16.html
Better go back to the slides… they are beaconing me… (or rather I know I will sleep better once I make them)
3 comments:
You're right about 1984 - it happened in Britain very, very subtly.
Surveillance, ID cards, thought police — it's all there. bbbrrr
This is similar to what the government means when it says "unemployment is down". Actually, what it means is that new applications for unemployment insurance are down. All those people who already applied - including all of those who have "fallen off" the end of their benefits, are not counted. Sure, they're still "unemployed" - but they aren't counted in the unemployment statistic.
BK > yes, I guess you can see the progression in Britain fairly clearly... with all the ctvs as well. I heard something about that in London you can be followed on the cameras around town... i guess, sometimes it is agood thing - sometimes not.
Anonymous>
That is something I have seen more and more. It is called something, and the next day the word is new... not to mention the holes in the statistics that you can't see, you just know the numbers do not add up with reality.
It sucks.
Post a Comment