informage

Despite being prepared for some shocks upon my return to the UK, nothing had prepared me for the crass and exploitative commercialism of this advertisement for the American Express Red card. I first saw this at Clapham Common tube station. I turned to my friends and asked them if they felt the same outrage I did, and realised that my exposure to the tragedy that is South Africa’s AIDS epidemic caused me to feel the pain in a way that they didn’t (I checked with some South African friends: I’m not alone).

Most offensive to me is the phrase “Has there ever been a better reason to shop?”, a somewhat surprising admission of the nature of this product and campaign (interestingly it was omitted from the other ads I spotted). The purpose is to tap into and profit from a particular market of “ethical consumers” on the back of the suffering and death of millions of Africans. Any actual benefit to those suffering will be marginal, and wholly outweighed by the profits AmEx and its board intend to receive.

More than six months after launch AmEx has donated some indeterminate sixth of $10 million to The Global Fund (see the pledges & contributions spreadsheet - the contributions of six companies including AmEx are lumped together), during which time two hundred thousand South Africans died of AIDS and AmEx made something like $1.8 billion in profits.

In contrast, The Gates Foundation has donated $500 million without recourse to a marketing campaign like this. I’m no big fan of the Gatesian approach to social change (see Slavoj Zizek’s Nobody has to be vile for a well-argued analysis), but at least the self-proclaimed “liberal communists” don’t make me queasy as did this ad and the details I went on to dig up.

The recent report Iran, Its Neighbours and the Regional Crises by Chatham House (a UK foreign policy thinktank described by SourceWatch as "at the centre of the British Establishment") has received a good degree of media attention. In particular much note has been made of the opening sentence:

There is little doubt that Iran has been the chief beneficiary of the war on terror in the Middle East.

Less attention has been drawn to the further analysis of the report, in particular their characterisation of Iran's foreign policy:

Iranian regional foreign policy, which is often portrayed as mischievous and destabilizing, is in fact remarkably pragmatic on the whole and generally aims to avoid major upheaval or confrontation.

Consider that this is the closest thing to the official view of the UK establishment when examining media alarmism around Iran's growing strength in the region.

"There exists at the present time among the Jews dispersed over Europe a strong notion that the time is approaching when their nation is to return to Palestine. It would be of manifest importance to the Sultan to encourage the Jews to return and settle in Palestine because the wealth that they would bring with them would increase the resources of the Sultan's dominions, and the Jewish people if returning under the sanction and protection at the invitation of the Sultan would be a check upon any future evil designs of Egypt or its neighbours. I wish to instruct your Excellency strongly to recommend to the Turkish government to hold out every just encouragement to the Jews of Europe to return to Palestine."

(Lord Palmerston, soon to be UK Prime Minister, 1840).

Scheming smoothtongued scumbag.

I’m stating the obvious when I say I haven’t been keeping my blog very up to date recently. Just look down and you can see that. In the meantime I do post links of interest to my delicious account which you can also see down on the right.

Later…

John Spencer, a wonderful American character actor, died on Friday of a heart attack. I never met the guy, but I'll miss his acting a lot. I have many fond family memories of sitting around watching him on LA Law as a kid, and when I finally decided to give The West Wing a try after many recommendations a couple of years ago, Spencer's charmingly intelligent character Leo McGarry did much to warm me to the show. In particular his portrayal of alcoholism - 'I don't want just one drink, I want ten' - gave me more insight into addiction than any educational pamphlet.

In a sick and twisted pastiche of postmodern irony, I was watching the episode where Leo demonstratively suffers a heart attack pretty much at exactly the same time that the actor was dying of the real thing. I had to double-take the headline - my immediate reaction being 'but he didn't die, it was a non-fatal heart attack'. Tragically in this detail, life didn't mirror fiction.

I love The West Wing, at least the first few seasons for sure. It started to decline with the departure of Aaron Sorkin, but before that the scripts are some of the best dramatic writing around., and since then it's still been darned entertaining. Jamie Zawinski calls it his "favorite fairy tale" (sic - he's a yank and thus cannot spell). I really can't disagree with that. There's a cloying yet comforting sweetness to the idea of the world's biggest superpower being run by a group of smart committed principled people who deeply understand the value of service. If only...

Independent Online Edition > Middle East:
Iraqis face the dire prospect of losing up to $200bn (£116bn) of the wealth of their country if an American-inspired plan to hand over development of its oil reserves to US and British multinationals comes into force next year.

Staying with the maritime theme, here's a wave that hit our harbour last weekend. At the time I was sitting mere metres away in our local - the Brass Bell - and heard some murmurs about some people being swept into the sea. We considered joining the throng of spectating tourists, but in true hardened local fashion instead sipped on our beers. Only later on seeing this shot did I realise the scale of what happened. Fortunately both these tourists were rescued by some courageous locals. I imagine they'll be a little more wary of high seas in future (picture courtesy of Martin and Callan - they both sent me copies).

It's whale season in Cape Town and one of the joys of living now in Kalk Bay is that they cruise right past our balcony. Today they were countless whales cavorting around, some nearby and some far. Two in particular Chris and I spied swimming almost into the harbour and so we promptly rushed down for a closer look. These are the somewhat unfortunately named Southern Right Whales, superficially not the most beautiful of creatures but with a striking sentient presence. In the glorious heyday of whale hunting (sarcasm intended) they were named for being the "right" whales to hunt, having an exceptionally high fat yield.

When we got to the harbour even the hardened local fisherman were stopped and gazing in awe. The two leviathans on the right were swimming past the harbour entrance just a metre away from us, barnacle-encrusted backs undulating through the waves. Southern right wales have no dorsal fin, so the protuberance you can see above left results from a lazy sideways roll. Despite their immense size they will sometimes playfully launch themselves out of the water, a behaviour known as breaching. Whilst my attention was focused on the couple nearby, a more distant whale began a series of breaches, perhaps in a bid for attention. My shot is a bit blurry as the whale was at a good distance, but my timing was good!