Notes from a Small Planet
Created | Updated Feb 21, 2002
Yen Bushism
This week, President George W. Bush managed to do something that he's never managed before.
He has said stupid things and used the wrong words on countless occasions. But for connoisseurs of 'Bushisms', the one he produced while visiting Japan represented a landmark. This was the first time that a Bush blunder had caused a crisis for a major currency.
After meeting Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Bush told reporters that he and Koizumi had discussed 'the devaluation issue'. Cue panic at the Tokyo stock exchange, where it was suddenly believed that Bush had demanded a cut in the value of the Japanese yen. Life imitated Bushism, as the value of the yen did actually fall for a while, before embarrassed American officials hastily pointed out that Bush had actually meant to say 'the deflation issue'.
Not the same thing at all - and all rather deflating for Bush's dignity.
Truly, a classic Bushism. Not quite as funny as, say, 'You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test,' but the most spectacular yet in its consequences, and thus one to remember.
There's only one problem with Bushisms. They're endlessly entertaining, and heartening for those of us who disagree with much of what he stands for. The trouble is that your smile tends to fade when you remember that, however stupid he sounds, this is the most powerful man in the world. And that the words that do come out the way he intended can also have disastrous consequences, as in the case of the recent 'axis of evil' speech condemning Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
The angry reception Bush got in South Korea this week from protesters furious at his inclusion of North Korea in the 'axis of evil' will hopefully have left him in no doubt about how unhelpful such inflammatory rhetoric actually is. After decades of conflict, the South Korean government has recently been working hard towards an amicable relationship with its northern neighbour. Bush's insistence that the USA has no plans for a military assault on North Korea may have offered some reassurance - but not all that much.
Not when it appears that, contrary to previous appearances, the 'war on terrorism' is going to continue to be just that - a physical war against any nation that the US government deems to have the wrong friends. The rhetoric coming out of Washington at the moment suggests more and more strongly that the next target after Afghanistan is going to be Iraq, despite the lack of any real evidence connecting Saddam Hussein to the September 11 attacks.
True, Hussein's regime is an absolutely appalling one. But that would not justify the civilian casualties that would certainly result from an attack on Iraq. Such an attack would not have the international support that the US action in Afghanistan had. The 'war on terrorism' would no longer have what Tony Blair has called 'the moral power of a world acting as a community'. It would begin to look even less like a war on terrorism, and more like a war on anyone that American conservatives don't like the look of.
It would be a Bush blunder that the world wouldn't be able to laugh about.
Sites for sore heads
I don't know about you, but I've kept ceasing to exist this week. It's been very disconcerting. I've kept trying to go my Personal Space only to find that there's no such person as Ormondroyd.
Where my space should be, there's been a page belonging to some bone-idle character called 'Researcher 95721' who's never made a single posting - although, to be fair, perhaps there wouldn't have been much point in their doing so, since the 'Who's Online' window has kept reporting '0 Researchers online'. And when all this has happened, I've found that I haven't even been able to get a virtual pint from one of the h2g2 virtual pubs to calm my nerves, because the site has said that it doesn't know me and so I can't post anything there.
But then, just when I'd started to think that it must be something I'd said, I saw the explanation on the h2g2 Announcements page about how there's been all kinds of mysterious problems with the servers this week. The announcement apologises for the inconvenience, and adds that h2g2 technical crew are working on the problem into the night. So I'm sure that I'll soon stop getting that 'I'm not all there' feeling.
Coincidentally, the BBC News site this week published another story about that alarming modern ailment, web rage. It explains how, according to a new survey, seven per cent of Internet users sometimes get frustrated enough to launch a physical attack on either their computer keyboard or their mouse when sites fail to download, help buttons fail to help, or technology otherwise fails to deliver. With statistics like that, perhaps someone should market a special, ultra-sturdy, indestructible 'mighty mouse' for bad-tempered web surfers.
But what's even more alarming is that two per cent of web users admit to having hit work colleagues to relieve their frustration when the 'Net hasn't given them what they want. Which rather makes me fear for the safety of the Italics. It could have got dangerous at h2g2 HQ this week!
In response to the 'web rage' phenomenon, the British building society Abbey National has launched a site called Moments of Simplicity, which plays chill-out music and shows supposedly soothing images.
The thing is, though, that when I visited the site, one of the first 'soothing' images I came across was one of a motorway. So what's going to happen if someone suffers from web rage, goes to that site to calm down, sees the 'motorway' picture, and has a road rage flashback?
And how much longer before computer technicians have to start dressing like riot police to protect themselves from all these psychotically frustrated would-be web users?
Grinning and baring it
Finally, I hope you enjoyed Valentine's Day last week. At the very least, I hope you enjoyed it more than Stephen McPherson of Grays, Essex, UK, who is unlikely ever to forget last week after logging on to the one of his favourite Internet sites and unexpectedly finding a nude picture of himself there.
As is that wasn't enough, it was accompanied by a headline reading 'Tell Him To Marry Me', and message from a woman Stephen knew, reading:
'This is Stephen, the man I want to marry. The problem is he doesn't quite agree so I've put his picture on the Net and am asking you to help me persuade him until he says "Yes."'
It was all very embarrassing for poor Stephen - especially as he has doesn't work in the most light-hearted or liberal of environments. He's a law clerk in the UK government's Serious Fraud Office. Inevitably, he's now been nicknamed 'The Naked Civil Servant'.
The perpetrator of the prank was Sarah Jay, who Mr McPherson had thought of as a friend - although he now understandably says:
'I wouldn't have said Sarah was a complete psycho, but it could have been a side of her that I've never seen.'
All things considered, Stephen's taken it pretty well. He says:
'I was furious at first. But I got a lot of quite humorous e-mails from around the world that calmed me down, particularly from blokes saying they were glad they were already engaged. Some of them were a bit unkind - asking me whether it was cold when the photo was taken - and others were just, shall we say, weird.'
So if you've ever been embarrassed after seeing your picture on here following a h2g2 meet, just think yourself lucky. At least that sort of picture doesn't get taken at h2g2 get-togethers.
Well, not as far as I know, anyway...
