09 February 2008
Blimp
Already sounds like a word from a poem by Edwin Morgan. I love this idea. Never mind the impracticality of pumping water. Let gravity take care of sewage. Electricity will be conducted by astonishingly fine, astonishingly conductive rare metals. Winds will blow, and people will talk nostalgically of being grounded.
07 February 2008
Cantuar
It's not clear from the press what Dr Williams had in mind, but it won't be the sort of thing the mad dogs have been howling over. There is no way even he, with his knees on a hassock and head in the clouds, could seriously suggest applying sharia law to anyone who doesn't consent. So it couldn't apply in matrimonial cases (children to consider, even if women can be assumed to be giving free consent) or family inheritance cases (what about potential beneficiaries who don't consent to the sharia court?) let alone in criminal cases.
There may - just - be an argument for using a sharia court as an agreed arbitrator in contract cases, much as one might have the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors written into a contract as arbiter for development disputes. Consenting adults should be able to decide how to settle their disputes. However, this would be fair only between bargainers of equal bargaining power. And even then, just imagine the hoohah when someone appeals against the decision of such a sharia court because it's partial (judges related to plaintiff), incompetent (judges comatose) or capricious (judges didn't consider evidence), just to take three examples that might happen in any tribunal. In such a case, the appeal would lie to the civil courts in the usual way. "English Law Overrules Sharia!" "English Rules OK!" Just imagine. And heaven forfend that it's a Jewish judge in the Appeal Court.
The prelate espouses a misguided pluralism, to put it mildly. Nevertheless, it doesn't take too much imagination to foresee this as encouragement and sanction for enclaves of sharia law in the sort of place where young men like Abu Izzadeen can say to the Home Secretary: "How dare you come here, to a Muslim area, after you have arrested Muslims..." It's already happening informally. There are tribal areas in New Zealand which apply tribal law with the consent of the state, and I believe there are many other places around the world with such enclaves, where colonisers have exempted certain areas from application of their Law. Should it make any difference whether such enclaves are indigenous or immigrant? Personally, I deplore that sort of separation whatever its genesis, but then I'd do away with faith schools and the established church and -- don't get me started. Let's keep one law for all, please.
Update
Here's what he said.
There may - just - be an argument for using a sharia court as an agreed arbitrator in contract cases, much as one might have the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors written into a contract as arbiter for development disputes. Consenting adults should be able to decide how to settle their disputes. However, this would be fair only between bargainers of equal bargaining power. And even then, just imagine the hoohah when someone appeals against the decision of such a sharia court because it's partial (judges related to plaintiff), incompetent (judges comatose) or capricious (judges didn't consider evidence), just to take three examples that might happen in any tribunal. In such a case, the appeal would lie to the civil courts in the usual way. "English Law Overrules Sharia!" "English Rules OK!" Just imagine. And heaven forfend that it's a Jewish judge in the Appeal Court.
The prelate espouses a misguided pluralism, to put it mildly. Nevertheless, it doesn't take too much imagination to foresee this as encouragement and sanction for enclaves of sharia law in the sort of place where young men like Abu Izzadeen can say to the Home Secretary: "How dare you come here, to a Muslim area, after you have arrested Muslims..." It's already happening informally. There are tribal areas in New Zealand which apply tribal law with the consent of the state, and I believe there are many other places around the world with such enclaves, where colonisers have exempted certain areas from application of their Law. Should it make any difference whether such enclaves are indigenous or immigrant? Personally, I deplore that sort of separation whatever its genesis, but then I'd do away with faith schools and the established church and -- don't get me started. Let's keep one law for all, please.
Update
Here's what he said.
05 February 2008
Rant
On one of the forums where I lurk, someone is complaining that the editors of a magazine suggested changes to their submission which would have radically altered the poem, nay changed the whole tenor. The poster adds that they never had much faith in those editors' judgement anyway.
So why are they sending their poems there?
It is easy to get enraged over exchanges like this, so I won't. It can be very dodgy offering unsolicited crit. Some people are adult enough to welcome it, but others are prickly as hell. Why do they send stuff in the first place if they don't value the editor's judgement?
As for solicited crit, you know it's going to be a disaster from the off. Anyone who needs to ask isn't going to like what you're going to say. Anyone with an ounce of sense knows that editors won't have time to write a word more than they have to unless they want to. It takes too long to work out a tactful way to tell someone their work is crap. Or just boring.
Some would-be contributors have an attitude problem: they seem to think that there's a kind of bar of general competence they have to clear.
Er, NO.
They have to write a poem that the editor thinks other people are prepared to pay money to read.
Plus, that poem has to fit in with the other poems on the shortlist. So the ten millionth brilliant poem about Alzheimer's probably ain't going to cut it.
The editor's judgement may be a bit idiosyncratic, but the editor's best placed to know the sort of people lined up prepared to pay for poems in that particular magazine, and how far to push their tolerance - so like it or not, the would-be contributor has got to accept that judgement. Anyway, why are they sending their precious poems there in the first place if they don't?
I'm well into my second year editing at Seam. It feels like a hundred. When I started out, I was more liberal with my comments than I am now. One classic response was from a man who wrote that he'd taken on board my suggestions, and had sent his revised poem to a competition where it had won a prize... (Thanks, mate, you're welcome.)
I don't know about other editors, but the biog is the last thing I read. And I'm trying to draft a catch-all rejection slip that is somewhat more gracious than the one I got from Brando's Hat, years ago, after about six months. We are sorry you have not been successful - a thin line of type crudely scissored from thirtynine identical others on a page of A4.
So why are they sending their poems there?
It is easy to get enraged over exchanges like this, so I won't. It can be very dodgy offering unsolicited crit. Some people are adult enough to welcome it, but others are prickly as hell. Why do they send stuff in the first place if they don't value the editor's judgement?
As for solicited crit, you know it's going to be a disaster from the off. Anyone who needs to ask isn't going to like what you're going to say. Anyone with an ounce of sense knows that editors won't have time to write a word more than they have to unless they want to. It takes too long to work out a tactful way to tell someone their work is crap. Or just boring.
Some would-be contributors have an attitude problem: they seem to think that there's a kind of bar of general competence they have to clear.
Er, NO.
They have to write a poem that the editor thinks other people are prepared to pay money to read.
Plus, that poem has to fit in with the other poems on the shortlist. So the ten millionth brilliant poem about Alzheimer's probably ain't going to cut it.
The editor's judgement may be a bit idiosyncratic, but the editor's best placed to know the sort of people lined up prepared to pay for poems in that particular magazine, and how far to push their tolerance - so like it or not, the would-be contributor has got to accept that judgement. Anyway, why are they sending their precious poems there in the first place if they don't?
I'm well into my second year editing at Seam. It feels like a hundred. When I started out, I was more liberal with my comments than I am now. One classic response was from a man who wrote that he'd taken on board my suggestions, and had sent his revised poem to a competition where it had won a prize... (Thanks, mate, you're welcome.)
I don't know about other editors, but the biog is the last thing I read. And I'm trying to draft a catch-all rejection slip that is somewhat more gracious than the one I got from Brando's Hat, years ago, after about six months. We are sorry you have not been successful - a thin line of type crudely scissored from thirtynine identical others on a page of A4.
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