Bits and pieces

Saturday, 8 March 2003, 11:54

After some reflection, I’ve decided not to post my rant about the nonsense that 24-year-old Independent columnist Johann Hari wrote yesterday about our “generation.” Hari thinks we’re all Ketamine-popping cynics who have nothing nice to say about politicians and only root for “sneerers” like Jeremy Paxman. Whatever. Zzzz.

I’ll wait a few weeks till I start making enemies with this blog. Instead some other stuff:

In case you missed it, Ha’aretz reporter Amira Hass, the the first and only Israeli journalist living in the Palestinian territories, yesterday won the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize.

In the New Yorker, Simon Schama does his best to widen the alleged transatlantic rift with this piece, while at Oxford, Seth Green is the member of a group trying to close it. I got that via Matthew Yglesias, whose post on this topic has provoked some interesting comments on the effect of 24-hour news on the transatlantic relationship.

Lately I have been wondering whether I should have bothered going to university at all. Now it’s official: I’d be better off if I hadn’t.