Days: it’s a blog thing
Since August, 2001. Surely it can’t last…
Saturday, November 16, 2002 ↓
THE BEAST IS DEAD
I heard the BBC report in the early hours of this morning that Myra Hindley, probably Birtain’s most hated woman, had died at around 5 o’clock on Friday evening. In doing so, she fulfilled the fate set for her by successive Home Secretaries, that she should spend the rest of her life in prison. By dying yesterday, she eliminated a looming problem for Home Secretary David Blunkett, in that a forthcoming ruling on an appeal brought before the House of Lords in another case could have paved the way for Hindley’s release unless some other extraordinary measures were taken.
I doubt many people who lived through the period of her crimes will shed a tear for her passing; certainly not the families of the children that she and her lover, Ian Brady, sexually assaulted, tortured and murdered. If you are not familiar with the case, there are many write-ups on the Web:
- Murder On The Moors: The Ian Brady and Myra Hindley Story
- Court cleared for Moors murder charges hearing
- Life sentences for Brady and Hindley
I was nine years old when the whole story unfolded, and to this day I have a vivid recollection of the horror felt by the entire country over what the evil pair had done. I can’t imagine the effect it must have had on those (including the child’s own mother) who had to listen to the quarter-hour tape recording that Hindley and Brady made of ten-year-old Lesley Anne Downey just before they killed her, in which the distraught child calls for her mother and God to help her. She knew she was in mortal danger.
Whereas Brady accepted his sentence and later made it clear he never wanted to be released, Hindley protested for a long time that she was not involved. She finally gave up that tack some years ago, but continued to protest that it was Brady, and not she, who had committed the murders. Even if true (and from the evidence in Lesley Anne Downeys’s case, that seems unlikely) she could not seem to see how little difference that made morally, if not legally. It can be argued that Brady was simply a crackpot, but there was no such excuse for Hindley, and no excuse for her going along with or failing to prevent Brady’s schemes. Her numerous appeals for release on the grounds that she had served longer in prison than other murderers did nothing to endear her further in the eyes of the British public.
In the way of these strange coincidences, it’s less than a fortnight since I and a few friends drove over the Pennines by Saddleworth Moor on our way from Yorkshire to Birmingham. The only truly sad thing about Hindley’s death is that the body of Keith Bennett, still buried somewhere up on that bleak moor, will probably never now be recovered.
Monday, November 11, 2002 ↓
ANOTHER CSS LIST
Purely by coincidence, after mentioning Meryl Evans’ efforts yesterday, I stumbled across another list of sites using CSS-based layouts. The Big CSS List has been put together by Bob Sawyer. The list, to quote Bob, “has been culled from a variety of sources around the Internet and is comprised mainly of personal, non-commercial sites” and includes those on Donimo Shriver’s original WebNouveau list.
Update Nov. 15. And another, this time at Dotfile… though it doesn’t look like this one is being maintained.
Sunday, November 10, 2002 ↓
TABLELESS AND ACCESSIBLE WEB SITES
Some time ago, Donimo Shriver began compiling a list of sites that use pure CSS positioning rather than tables to effect their layout. This site was listed as number 0516.
Perhaps Donimo was unable to devote time to it any longer; whatever the reason, the list disappeared. Recently Meryl Evans has undertaken to revive it. December14.net is on this page.
In addition, Meryl has started a new list for standards compliant, accessible web sites that have been validated by Bobby as conforming to W3C WAI guidelines or Section 508 requirements.
Wouldn’t you just know it(!), but december14.net meets both WAI Conformance Level A and Section 508 requirements, and is a fairly early entrant to Meryl’s new list.
Hats off to Meryl for doing her bit to encourage web builders to adopt web standards and embrace accessibility. There’s a lot of other good stuff on her site too, so get over there and take a look.
FREE SPEECH vs HATE SPEECH
Wired News reports on a decision taken by the Council of Europe that legislation should be introduced to criminalise hate speech on the internet.
Specifically, the amendment bans “any written material, any image or any other representation of ideas or theories, which advocates, promotes or incites hatred, discrimination or violence, against any individual or group of individuals, based on race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin, as well as religion if used as pretext for any of these factors”.
I can’t say I feel enthusiastically supportive of any such moves. First of all, there are huge practical difficulties. How could the law be enforced, when web site content is written and published on web servers all over the world, in countries with what can be staggeringly different legal systems? There’s nothing new about this question, but it’s still largely unanswered.
Second, I object to most forms of censorship, and the internet is the last mass medium where it is difficult to impose — so “the bastards can’t get you” for saying what you think (well, not all of the time). This doesn’t mean I support the views and activities of paedophiles, child pornographers and would-be murderers — be sensible, people. But I like to remind myself of those living in oppressive regimes who, in spite of the physical dangers and technical difficulties, manage to make the rest of the world more aware of their plight through the Web.
Finally, I belong firmly in the camp that believes the best way to expose bigots, racists and religious fanatics for what they are is to let them express their views freely, widely, and often. We need freedom of expression so that we can be constantly reminded that there are people who hold lunatic, despicable and unacceptable views. We need freedom of expression so that we can see who they are, know what they think, and watch their every objectionable move.
Previous entries
Older material is stashed away under Replays.
