John Naugton has a very interesting story about Dick Crossman, the great Labour politician and writer; who apparently insisted that one of the death camps be filmed as it was liberated, because some day people will deny that this ever happened.
It was a cool, sunny day: perfect for joining the KStars running club for one of their regular Saturday morning runs in the Golden Gate Park. (The KStars was co-founded by our friend, David Hoatson.) Apparently, lots of other people thought it would be a good day to go running Read more…
Whatever you think of the outcome of the election, the inauguration of the President is a special moment. The ability of a country to hand power peacefully from one administration to the next is one of the most important defining features of democracy. The US should be proud of its Read more…
Millions of people are living through catastrophes in places that are never mentioned on the evening news. The NGO Medicins Sans Frontiers has compiled the top ten stories of 2004 that you should have heard of. The 10 stories highlighted by MSF accounted for just one minute of the 14,561 Read more…
Here is a great collection of all the covers of Private Eye. I think this may be the best Private Eye cover of all time, back from 1966, on the assassination of the South African Prime MInister, Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd
My Dad reproduced this very funny spoof letter in his blog – see it here. Every time I read it, it seems funnier and funnier.
We spent the weekend in Pennsylvania. You can see the photos here. Philadelphia was the venue for the meetings which lead to the drafting of the US Declaration of Independence, and the US Constitution – documents (esp the Declaration of Independence) which are, even today, inspiring and radical. It is Read more…
I have the greatest sympathy for the family of Charlie Bell, the Chief Executive of McDonalds who died on Sunday of cancer of the colon at the age of 43. That is a tragically young age for a man who should have had a great future. It is all the Read more…
A request has flooded in for the figures for my previous posting ("Is America stingy with aid?"). So I have worked out league tables for the industrialised countries which rank countries according to: public and private giving measured in total dollars (the US is ranked 1st of 22) public and Read more…
There is an interesting discussion going on about whether the US is "stingy" in the amount of aid it gives. US official aid is 0.15% of national income. But some commentators are claiming that this understates American generosity, because of substantial flows of private giving. See, for example: Replublicans and Read more…