Wednesday, July 19, 2006

The herogram to end all herograms from my boss in London after yesterday's herculean efforts by the dock.

When your boss starts gettting Churchillian on your ass, I think it's safe to assume he's happy with your work:

Yesterday was one of those days that makes me proud to work for the BBC. Twenty different correspondents filed 39 different despatches for radio -- from Beirut, Tyre, Haifa, Jerusalem, Gaza, Damascus, Cairo, Cyprus and London. And then there was the live TV coverage from the Beirut dockside that left the competition standing. It's a remarkable achievement which shows the range, depth and expertise of Newsgathering. Winston Churchill once said "wars aren’t won by evacuation". That may be true, but yesterday this story was! Thanks to all of you who are working so hard to tell such an important story.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I have been following the BBC TV coverage from the beginning. your boss is right. take care
starliz

2:43 PM  
Blogger SPIIDERWEB™ said...

Congrats!!!!1!!

Always nice to get an "atta boy".

3:30 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Here's some Churchill for you kid:

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.…A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.
Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities ... but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome. [The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pp. 248-50.]


And for good measure:

“They [the neutral countries] bow humbly and in fear to German threats of violence, comforting themselves meanwhile with the thought that the Allies will win, that Britain and France will strictly observe all laws and conventions, and that breaches of these laws are only to be expected from the German side. Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. But I fear - I fear greatly - the storm will not pass.”

4:29 PM  

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