And redacted? Why should we accept this grotesque euphemism? It means prepared for publication, not at all the same thing as blacked out. These documents have been censored, a word that captures the full resonance of what is happening here.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Redact This
The Special Parliamentary Committee to Make MPs Look as Stupid and Venal as Possible (TSPCTMMLASAVAP) has pulled off its greatest coup. Issuing 'redacted' - I'll come back to that word - expenses claims that have already appeared unredacted is a stroke of genius. Just when you thought the reputation of parliament could sink no lower, TSPCTMMLASAVAP comes up with this, a gesture whose only possible function can be to make everybody involved look like a complete jerk. Meanwhile, TSPCTMMLASAVAP's other project - to impose the grim visage of caravan-owning Margaret Beckett on the nation as Speaker - is going surprisingly well. At this rate they'll increase voter disgust to the point where turnout at the next election will be zero.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
You couldn't make it up.
ReplyDeleteBut what did they expect from a cabal of socialists?
A large chunk of blame must go to the metropolitan elite that supported this shower - the media, the BBC in particular, has been relentlessly pro Labour for decades and helped us on the way to this debacle.
Redact is a word recently in vogue among lawyers who use it in the same sense as the government - to censor before making available for general reading. Whereas the derivation (redigere) would indicate that it means the opposite - to work into shape, to bring back into a form fit for publication.
ReplyDeleteCollectively, this Government is no more than a punch drunk pug reeling around the boxing ring as the punches rain down. If they were not so concussed they would have realised that publishing EVERYTHING is the only way forward. Anything less is just spitting in the electorate's eye!
ReplyDelete