Pixelated Semantics

Hate, hate; grate, grate: a walk on the snide side that sort of ripples.

'Tis the season when the media takes a vacation. And so one finds a university criticising contemporary language use (no!), or sees shades of Ballard's "Crash" in the roadside accident proposal (ah, the romance of impalement). There is still hope however, when Lenny Bruce gets a posthumous pardon, and a dentist makes dentures for an old elephant. Freudian Slip of the Week belongs to Tony Blair for his admission that "weapons of mass distraction" were in fact the target in Iraq. Meanwhile the Chinese government, ever in pursuit of excellence, have taken their treatment of internet activists and hackers to the next level by apparently torturing to death a man who dared to hack into cable TV and broadcast a program.

After all, "a lot of words and phrases sort of ripple their way around the world faster" these days, according to a member of the Lake Superior State University Committee On "Words [to be] Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness".

Updating other items last year: allegations regarding illegal papers being given to immigrants have been edited out of subsequent news posts; the Iraqi trade union raid recieved no significant coverage at all; a new study of prisoners in the Brisbane watchhouse found most of them were the most marginal of social groups, being drug addicts, mentally ill, homeless, or all of the above; an inquiry into the Detention Center torture allegations is still to be held; while police have shot dead a man in my own neighbourhood on a stabbing spree, as they were unable to have the "luxury" of wounding or using non-lethal methods, despite previously stating they were trialling tasers.

Item posted by AutoEditor at 11:49 am ::