Embracing the net

After yet another long absence from the blogorama, I'm back. In mitigation I can only say that a three month old daughter is enough to keep anyone occupied.

I wanted to write about The Mark of Cain which was on channel 4 oh so long ago now. All I'll say is that The Mark of Cain is a must see. Way back in the day (1998, I think) the BBC showed a play called "Warriors" in one scene so horrific it must have been true (no writer would make that kind of thing up) British peace keepers are shown at their most humane. Watch "Warriors" and "The Mark of Cain" together, and ignore all the left, right and centre rubbish that has been written about it (The Mark of Cain).

Postmanpatel has some good comments on The Mark of Cain (look out for my favourite - "Des Browne, described as Defence Secretary")

With that, let's segue from Des Browne to politicians more generally. The BBC has been reporting that politicians are increasingly turning to MySpace and other social networking sites to promote their message and get down wid' da' kids. Anyone remember WebCameron? [www.webcameron.org.uk/] No? Shame on you!

Let's be honest, while I can only applaud politicians attempts at "linking in with (younger) voters I'm really not sure that MySpace is the right place to "network, debate and keep up to date with all Hain4Labour events" as Peter Hain put it. Social networking is one big excuse to waste time at work, don't politicos do enough of that already? Yeah that is a somewhat lame dig, and not all politicians spend their time on those lucrative second jobs (imagine the outcry if teachers didn't come in to school one day a week because they were fulfilling directorship duties), but if all they do is stick up a picture of themselves, what's the point. The other danger of course is that they become swayed by the hive mentality that is all to often in evidence on the net (where regardless of empirical knowledge something is judged to be true because a majority of people say it is). [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6551689.stm]

Elsewhere on the net theregister.co.uk wondered whether "we should worry about google" [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/11/googilla_inthe_boardroom/] to which one reader responded "Corporations don't have ethics, they have public relations." [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/13/1304_letters/page2.html]. Well said sir.

Finally a quick nod to Justin Rowlatt who was Newsnight's "Ethical Man" let's hope he keeps it up. There are some good links/hints/tips on the summary page of his experiences at http://www.bbc.co.uk/.../we_are_all_ethical_men_and_women_now.html


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