Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Hidden poets at the Economist

Well, lovers of poetry, anyway, otherwise they wouldn't have managed the Brooke reference in the title "Some corner of a foreign field" in this article (http://www.economist.com/node/17312300?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/ar/foreignfield). Unfortunately, these educated ones appear to be rather nasty.

> Like many Anglo-Indians, members of a Eurasian community
> spawned during the Raj,

Spawned? Thank you, dear Economist, for reminding us that we are discussing half-castes here and not real human beings.

(In case anyone misses the point, most dictionaries note that the usage of "spawn" in this context is derogatory and contemptuous)

Orcs, for instance, are spawned.

> The Anglo-Indian population fell from perhaps 500,000 in 1947
> to fewer than 150,000 today.

This is fascinating. "Perhaps 500,000"? What are the author's reasons for quoting this figure? May we take it as being close to 500,000? Why not "circa 500,000", then? Or is it a number that the author decided as being probable? Not that the author favours us with a source for the "fewer than 150,000 today" figure either. This sort of of shoddy homework ought to be unacceptable in a professional journalist. Of course, perhaps the professional journalist was too busy looking up the Brooke reference (Paraphrased - If I should fall, Think only this of me, That there's some corner of a foreign field, That is for ever England) and got the security desk to write the rest of the article.


> Yet many are also thriving, thanks to rising demand
> for Anglophones from India’s booming services firms.

This is plainly misleading. All Anglo-Indians might well be Anglophones, but not all Anglophones must speak excellent English (indeed, not even all of those brought up speaking no language other than English speak it very well), and, in any case, there are plenty of non-Anglo-Indians in India who speak English (and who may or may not be Anglophones). Indeed, post-colonial, post-market-reform India is more pro-American than Anglophone.
On Poles and Lithuanians

Yet another shoddy, arrogant article in the Economist (http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2010/10/poland_and_lithuania&fsrc=nwl) appeared in the incorrectly defined Eastern approaches secton of the Economist.

> This has the potential to be a really nasty and
> damaging row, not least because it will make all
> the post-communist countries look like petty-minded nitwits.

Indeed? *All* post-communist countries? Like the erstwhile DDR (East Germany)? A more reasonable point of view is that the above assertion makes the writer of the Economist article look like an arrogant megalomaniac, petty-minded at that.

> (NB to Lithuanian MFA: please use spellcheck)

This is a little ironic. The first sentence of this Economist article is grammatically incorrect. "print edition carries a short sharp take on the " - comma missing between short and sharp. The second sentence uses the abbreviations for "et cetera" and "id est" without the required periods, i.e. as "ie" and not "i.e.", etc..


> As someone who knows and likes both countries
> (and as one of a handful of western observers with
> a working grasp of both languages) I find all this depressing.

This would evoke ridicule if it were not slighty pitiful. "Western"? Where is the author from? Portugal? Eileen Limerick O'Reilly from Ireland? Are there any Africans, Chinese or Mexicans who happen to speak both languages? None such? What of Russians, Poles or Lithuanians who speak both languages, along with English, and have lived in a city in the blessed West? Would their opinion as "observers" (of man? of our times?) count? What is a "working grasp"? Enough to write semi-literate articles in the equivalents of the Economist in Poland and Lithuania? Or enough to thank Svetlana for her services and to condescendingly instruct a waiter to keep the change, whilst tipping much more than what the natives would?

One regrets, and one is probably joined by all Poles, that our writer is subject to this bout of depression. Incidentally, that's not the only insight into his or her mental state that the author allows us ("I have a gloomy feeling that we may be heading for something similar"). Depression and gloom. Perhaps the Economist ought to organize neck-massage teams in their work-places. And some vodka. Ah, no, that's the stuff people in the East drink. Not for us Westerners, thank you very much.


> Both sides prefer myths to facts.

And the West (not to mention the Chinese, the Indians and the rest of mankind, throughout all ages) does not? All humans work with and revere myths. The author ought to stay away from metaphysics (the nature of truth). Especially when (see above) in his or her current state of mind.

> The issue is ripe for outside mediation.

Outside? Perhaps the author means "Western"? Or is the rest of humanity now allowed in too? Shall we let the Africans have a go?

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Journalism and instant soup

The Economist carried an article titled "Islam-baiting in America" (http://www.economist.com/blogs/lexington/2010/10/jihad_and_soup)

> There is now a ludicrous and hateful campaign to boycott
> Campbell's for having the temerity to issue a halal line of soups.

> As for the tea-party movement, with its supposed veneration
> for the values entrenched in the constitution........

The cheap-appeal-to-patriotism "values entrenched in the constitution" argument is absurd - the campaigners are boycotting, and not burning cars or killing people (which response is not entirely unknown in certain parts of the world.......). Entirely constitutional, and in the best traditions of free speech. This writer needs to get over labelling as ludicrous, hateful, infantile and shaming opinions that differ from his or her own. Or should we all have one single Economist-approved opinion, one political stance, one can of Campbell's a day?