Diplomat lets the cat out of the bag
If you see Osama Bin Laden putting up election posters, don't be surprised if they are for family friend, George W Bush. It is unsurprising that Osama Bin Laden prefers to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.

British ambassador to Rome, Sir Ivor Roberts, described President George Bush as "the best recruiting sergeant ever for al-Qaida". Sir Ivor obviously has a different definition of the word "diplomatic" than the one the rest of us use!

This revelation, although overstated, is not that far from the truth. The worldwide upsurge in anti-American resistance has led - in the absence of mass socialist movements - to a growth of fundamentalist militancy.

Thousands of American troops have been brought within striking distance of groups who are always identified by the media as "linked with Al Qaida". This is intended to discredit any and every opponent of American imperialism but a by-product is an enormous boost to the importance and prestige of Al Qaida.

John Simpson (BBC foreign correspondent) has made no bones of the fact that Al Qaida received arms, training and finance from the CIA.

Bush and Bin Laden are two terrorists who clearly need each other.

MNUA
I must not use abbreviations
I must not use abbreviations
I must not use abbreves.
I mst nt u abbreves.
MNUA
MNUA

On being the worst
If you cannot succeed in a school environment you might want to make a virtue of necessity and make "getting more detentions than anyone else" or "doing as little work as poss" or "being bottom of the class" your aim in life.

The constant testing, practising for tests, rehearsing tests....in short the things the government think education is all about....could be a factor here.

Pupils who are working together (for example on a media studies project) often seem less interested in "being the worst" because that would mean letting the other members of the group down.

In claiming that "townies" are the only people opposed to hunting, the Countryside Alliance seem a little two faced. I live in a small town in West Sussex. When the Countryside Alliance have support in the town they say this is because they are "country folk" and when they have opponents it is because they are "townies".
Whatever your views on hunting, if you live in the country you see the Countryside Alliance at close quarters and hear their views on racial minorities, asylum-seekers, trade unionists and various other people they would cheerfully set the dogs on.

Hunt supporters clash with police
As I write this Channel 4 news is reporting thuggish behaviour by pro hunt supporters. These are the two-faced people who complain of the lawless behaviour of animal rights protestors. Personally I am not an animal rights activist...I stroke the cat occasionally but that is about it....but this is a turn up for the book.

OFS***
Now Playing: Nothing is good enough
OFSTED has a habit of making damaging and superficial observations on teachers' lessons.
"Nothing is good enough for people like you
Have to have someone take the fall.
Something to sabotage
Determined to lose it all" (aimee Mann)
This is because of the structure of lesson observation. Anyone who observes a lesson has a little form invented by a Whitehall mandarin which insists that "points for improvement" must be included...so nothing is ever good enough.

Do not forget that OFSTED inspectors can be asked to teach a demonstration lesson to show teachers what they ought to be doing. I suggest you choose the class with care and videotape the results for staff training purposes .....or the Christmas party depending on the outcome.

One adviser in West Sussex has had the courage to do this and rose in my estimation and the estimation of the other teachers who were there to observe. Don't tell me how to be a better teacher. Show me

Poetry Corner
I have heard of the poetry corner
But your poems
Your poems just won't stay in the corner
They are out on the rooftops shouting
Singing in your heart
Crying in the darkness
Getting under my skin
It is that kind of poetry
It just won't behave
Just won't go stand in the corner

Debate on TES website
There has been a lovely debate on the TES website following my previous posting on animal rights and human rights. What follows is my one-sided summary but the whole debate is avalable on the TES website..

1) It is OK for the government to take away our liberty because this will defeat the terrorists. If you put it that way nobody would agree because it is simply factually incorrect. There is plenty of terrorism in Iraq, Russia, Saudi Arabia - but not much in the way of civil liberties. In fact the absence of civil liberties means that acts described as terrorism may be the only way people can make a point.

2) In the past drugs were tested on animals (with varying degrees of accuracy - Arsenic tends to be harmless to cats!) so therefore nobody should seek alternatives to animal testing now - anybody who does is an extremist.

and 3) There are very real threats against people who experiment on animals and therefore anybody who opposes experiments on animals is a terrorist. That is not such a logical argument is it?


As I said to start with I am not an animal rights activist of any kind but I do believe that the government will use laws against "extremists" to act against legitimate protest. This plays into the hands of the "extremists" however you define them.

The government has already used anti terrorist legislation against peace protestors and anti-capitalist protestors....rather than against terrorists.

FYI most terrorists do not have terrorist tattooed on their foreheads! (This last point refers to a photograph used to "prove" animal rights activists are all terrorists by showing one girl who had the word terrorist written on her forehead)

A likely story?
Mood:  don't ask
An inherently implausible story in the Observer today contains the following: "As hundreds of extremists from across the world gathered at a training camp in Kent today to learn direct-action tactics, the ultra-hardline wing of the movement warned the UK to brace itself for a sharp escalation in violent activity. "

An extremist training camp? In Kent? To which they invited the Sunday newspapers? Who does Mark Townsend (mark.townsend@observer.co.uk) think he is fooling?
His article then goes on to talk about "breaking windows" and "daubing graffiti on cars". With the wildest imagination in the world this is neither violence nor terrorism. They are hardly things which I would do myself or condone but has everybody lost their sense of proportion in the climate of fear caused by the "war on terrorism"?

In later paragraphs - reading between the lines - this is clearly a legitimate meeting of ordinary animal rights activists which inevitably attract the tiny handful of nutters who want to recruit. Mark Townsend says "sceptics are concerned those attending are being taught how to handle police interviews and life in jail." Thus he does not make the statement himself but attributes it to unnamed "sceptics" and in any case if teaching people about their rights is evidence of TERRORISM then Amnesty International and Liberty must be the biggest TERRORISTS out :)
I am not an animal rights activist of any kind - violent or otherwise...well I do stoke the cat occasionally but that is about it... but there is no excuse for this kind of second-rate sensational journalism.

Of course Blunkett will use the threat of "animal rights terrorism" against legitimate protest. He has already used the Prevention of Terrorism Act against peace protestors and anti-capitalist protestors....

He takes his cue from Bush whose administration used the Patriot Act against groups of peace activists and even one guy who got into a discussion with friends at the gym and was skeptical about the official version of the Twin Towers attack...shown in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.

People like Mark Townsend (mark.townsend@observer.co.uk) are creating an atmosphere of fear in which the rights of ordinary citizens can be taken away under the pretext of a crackdown on "extremists." Blunkett is the worst possible guardian of our rights - he thinks it is necessary to destroy liberty in order to save it.

Have a nice day.

Cyberspace - the final frontier
Andrea Chester at RMIT is doing research into the psychology of blogging: http://weblearn.rmit.edu.au/surveys/blog/

There is a very good psychological questionnaire and a number of questions about blogging. As a neophyte blogger I felt a bit over-awed. I think it is something I could encourage pupils to take part in but it is restricted to over 18s.

There is a glitch in the questionnaire which prevented me from citing my educational level as postgraduate and it automatically ticked high school. The standard psych personality test followed...if I say I am 2 for untidy must I say I am 4 for neat?.....and then some questions about why people write blogs. In my case it was mainly a matter of organising things I write and keeping them online where I can find them.

Overall it looks as though it will be a fascinating piece of research. Andrea asked me who I had in mind when writing. This is an interesting question because in writing a diary one is essentially writing to oneself. I always tell my students to have a specific person in mind, for example a stranger they have met for the first time. I suspect that all too often the only audience they have in mind is me and they wonder what sort of mark they think I'll give it and whether they have written enough to get away with it :)