In my Google News, I caught today that a Bangladeshi Internet publication is reporting that there are 50,000 cases of swine flu that have developed in the last few weeks. There is just one major problem with this story. As far as I can tell, we don't actually know if Bangladesh has been hit by 50,000 cases of swine flu in recent weeks based on the reporting:
I'm exaggerating for effect, but it drives me completely f"£king mad how many concepts have been virtually erased from popular discourse even though they're right there in front of me. For example, I can't believe some of the stuff I've been grappling towards for years on this blog has been extensively theorised before and I didn't know until just now. It feels like when I read Lenin on imperialism for the first time or any number of other works before the triumph of the memory warp that is neoliberalism.
ARGH.
Call me bitter because my own prognostication was off, but as I mentioned in the post where I attempted to test my own sense of general trends in Indian politics against my ability to predict election results, I find rapid post mortems from the very institutions and people who failed to accurately predict the elections both puzzling and structurally insidious. Setting aside the comments that are deliberately designed to further political ambitions (i.
The past few months have been one of the most challenging times to report from Sri Lanka, but this has never been a particularly easy war to cover.
The Tamil Tigers have now been pushed into a tiny corner of the country. But they have always ruled any areas under their control with an iron hand.
Dissent has never been accepted - and many Tamil critics of the LTTE have been murdered over the years.
First person report on a Times of London reporter's deportation from Sri Lanka. The lede:
"The Sri Lankan immigration officer’s eyes narrowed as she swiped my passport at the international airport in Colombo last week. “Come this way,” she said, leading me into a side room, where a colleague typed my details into a computer.
David SirotaTM has put himself forward for a new television show on MSNBC. Some people I would rather see get a teleivision show on MSNBC based on a few minutes of thought and googlesurfing:
Several journalists and social activists in Chennai got an alarming SMS from Colombo on Thursday morning: well-known Tamil newspaper editor Nadesapillai Vithyatharan had been whisked away by armed men in a white van in the midst of his relative's funeral.
Who says "South Asians" have nothing in common with each other? ;)