2012 in first lines
After my "confused and confusing" round up of 2012, and before I start 2013's proper blogging tonight or tomorrow, here is (via a meme Norm took from Harriet) 2012 condensed via first lines of each month of blogging. I've taken a couple of slight editorial liberties by not using the sentences like "So, this is a post where I give you loads of random links you may or may not read".
January: So, the jury has decided and the judge has sentenced and David Norris and Gary Dobson, two of Stephen Lawrence's five or six killers, will be serving time.
February: Eltham resident Raven has a fantastic post about Stephen Lawrence and life in Eltham, finely balancing the realities of mundane racism and everyday conviviality in that corner of South London.
October: I was struck by the under-reporting of some of the most extreme acts of violence by the Assad regime in Syria in what are hopefully its final weeks. Among the most brutal of its acts have been assaults on Palestinian refugee camps in Syria.
January: So, the jury has decided and the judge has sentenced and David Norris and Gary Dobson, two of Stephen Lawrence's five or six killers, will be serving time.
February: Eltham resident Raven has a fantastic post about Stephen Lawrence and life in Eltham, finely balancing the realities of mundane racism and everyday conviviality in that corner of South London.
March: In several posts on this blog, I have criticised the main national anti-fascist organisations in the UK, such as Unite Against Fascism (UAF) and Hope not Hate (HnH), which I see as populist organisations, preaching an ineffective liberal anti-fascism, and often operating as un-democratic front organisations for sectarian Trotskyist vanguard parties.
April: The main topics, again, are Ken Livingstone and George Galloway, arguably the tweedledee and tweedledum of Brititsh left politics.
May: I'm trying to write a few substantive pieces (on Eric Hobsbawm, Spiked, Occupy, militant anti-fascism, anti-anti-Zionism and various other subjects) but they've all stalled. In the meantime, check out my new side project, Bob's Beats. My plan is to open its pages to other folks as well, and Waterloo Sunset has kicked off in fine style with Stetsons and Whiskey, featuring some of my favourite country singers.
June: Writing this listening to intense rain and wind outside in dark South London.
July: Three updates on the German circumcision ban.
August: Sadly Brockley's own Olympian, Conrad Williams, who was apparently once a paperboy for Budgen's in Crofton Park, didn't make the 400m heats but almost got a bronze in the 4x400 hurdles, missing out by a whisker.
September: Jogo recommended to me a well-written article by Michael Ledeen on why the left is dead. I agree that the left is intellectually dead. He is correct that the left has embraced a politics of personal destruction, that it has no claim to moral superiority any more.
November: A new magazine and website, Fathom, has been launched, "a new quarterly journal of expert analysis, informed opinion and genuine debate about Israel and the region", and published by BICOM.
December: South East Londoners, as I write now, you have six days exactly to respond to the "consultation" and tell the TSA what you think about the closure of Lewisham's accident & emergency and maternity services.
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