Most people binge-watch multiple episodes of their favourite Netflix drama. Me? I’m binge watching Darren Louis building a timber frame extension on YouTube. This evening, episodes seven to twenty-one. Compulsive viewing.
I used to love The Verge. It was my lunchtime read for catching up on tech. But then came that crazy redesign, last September. That was the day The Verge killed The Verge. I just don’t get how that design got past usability testing. I can only assume they decided to skip it in their …
People forget that the purpose of our news media is not to neutrally report what is happening in the world, but to influence public opinion according to the political ambitions of their proprietors. Each media outlet has its own agenda and biases. State controlled media, whatever their claims of independence, aim to further state objectives, …
I would have said all of this.
Talk radio and the press want the people to busy themselves getting wound up about gender identity, black lives matter, immigration and extremism. Why? Because it prevents us from addressing the real issues. What are the so-called culture wars? In truth? In my opinion, they’re merely a device invented by the rich to distract from …
If ever you needed evidence that right wing social commentators have completely lost it, it is all here.
Those who wield power expect us to have very short attention spans. We are meant to suffer a collective amnesia which renders us blind to anything that happened just months ago. Thus our storytellers spin us new yarns, creating new narratives which counter every account of the world that went before.
It’s true: I haven’t a voice for making podcasts and videos. My voice is monotonous and boring. My wife listened to my first video and said it sounded like I was about to cry. My daughter listened and said I sounded like I had depression. Alas, alas. From here on, I’ll just make silent movies.
A decade ago, I was a fan of buffoonish crime drama, Death in Paradise, set on the fictional Caribbean island of Saint Marie. Initially, there was something quite quaint about a stiff-upper-lip British detective being dispatched to a paradise island to investigate a murder. The detective in question was played by actor Ben Miller, and …
For the past several weeks in our household, weekend evenings have been spent watching the touching Turkish drama, Yunus Emre, on Netflix. It has become something of a family affair, to be keenly anticipated throughout the week. Some nights we watched episodes back to back for hours on end, hooked on the quaint storytelling. In …
Once again, Miqdaad Versi reports another successful complaint, in getting the BBC to change what he says was a wholly inappropriate image of young Muslim girls learning to read Arabic chosen to illustrate an article about child marriage.
As I was praying Isha salah last night, these words flurried across my mind: “O you who have believed, if there comes to you a disobedient one with information, investigate, lest you harm a people out of ignorance and become, over what you have done, regretful.” — Qur’an 49:6 And with that I began to …
I see that reporting what another newspaper wrote is now considered journalism. I’ve read virtually identical reports in every major news outlet across the political spectrum, which all state the one known fact so far: that The Times newspaper published a story. The veracity of the story is not for discussion, as clearly everyone’s news …
A decade ago we listened to former Commander of NATO, General Wesley Clark, recounting his story of how the politicians around George W. Bush Jr. in 2001 planned to destroy the governments in seven countries in five years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.
I hate that we fly into a rage only when we are told to do so… that the whirlwind of sympathy and condemnation only occurs when the critical mass of sentiment drives us to take a stance… until then we must look the other way, or pretend not to notice horrific evil and our own …
