Darfur, Iraq impotence, and the h Word
Peter Dobbie here -- with the latest on what's on World Have Your Say, today Wednesday.
Something of a mixed bag:
We're kicking off with the connection between Darfur, Google and your PC.
Using satellite imagery, photos and eyewitness accounts, the terrible crisis in Sudan's Darfur region is being brought into the homes of millions of internet users. The Holocaust Museum in Washington DC has teamed up with Google's internet mapping service to try to stop the genocide. Does it make a difference, having this information delivered to you in a different way ?
, have a think and then come on the programme and tell us what you've learned. Has it changed your perception of what's happening there? By combining the museum's Darfur database with clickable images on the ground, they're trying to create what they're calling a "community of conscience". Some of it's strong stuff: there's one picture in there where you think it's just little dots on the ground -- what you're apparently looking at is hundreds of burned out mud huts, the handy-work we're told of the Janjaweed militia.
Another related topic today is Iraq, or how we (the outside world) handle our intervention in a crisis such as Iraq. The aid agency Oxfam today is saying that the outside world intervening in global crises is not the issue, but the process of involvement has to follow strict principles. Is that right ? Isn't that what the UN is for -- and can you apply a one size fits all way of doing things to different regions, different people and different wars ?
Next, answer me a question, please, someone ! What does "nappy-headed" mean? If you come on air and call me a "nappy head" would I be insulted? Well, I wouldn’t be because I don’t know what it means, but you get the basic idea. What we're discussing is American shock jocks -- and specifically the New York show host Don Imus, who has been disciplined because he combined that little ditty (nappy headed) with another insult (which I'm not repeating here !) and aimed it at a female black basketball team. The blogs are going crazy for this one so we want to know what you think -- when is going too far simply unacceptable? Are these radio jocks just doing what they're paid to do ? And is a two week suspension enough of a punishment? Indeed, should he be punished at all ?
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Talk to you later, Peter :-)
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