"Iraqi astronomer goes on TV to explain why Earth is flat"
Boing Boing (well-known whimsical blog) reports:
"...Fadhel Al-Said, a 'researcher on astronomy,' shared his surprising
findings about the shape of the Earth and the physics of the solar
system with Iraqi television viewers earlier this week":
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/27/iraqi-astronomer-goe-1.html
The 'original' YouTube video can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wppjYDj9JUc
An interesting comment features thereafter:
"MEMRI is an unreliable source. They routinely miss-translate, obscure
context and miss-represent the Arab and middle-eastern world. Please
look at http://memriwatch.org/
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/brian_whitaker/2007/05/arabic_under_fire.html
and
<quote>MEMRI's obsessive interest in protecting Israel derives from the
people and interests that founded, fund and manage the institute's
international operations. It was founded in 1998 by Yigal Carmon, a
former colonel in the Israel Defense Forces (Intelligence Branch) from
1968 until 1988, acting head of civil administration in the West Bank
from 1977 to 1982; and Israeli-born Meyrav Wurmser, an extreme rightwing
neoconservative now affiliated with the Hudson Institute. Meyrav is
married to David Wurmser, at one time an American Enterprise Institute
'scholar' and then a State Department apparatchik under John Bolton.</quote>
MEMRI is a disinformation outfit, by any definition, and there is no
determining if this is an "Iraqi astronomer" or a schizophrenic."
(User: Jeremiah Cornelius)
This might signal a possible case study for those interested in examples
of post-colonial politics played out through media representations of
'others'.
If nothing else it is an interesting snippet for a Friday(!)
Sam Kinsley
--
School of Geographical Sciences
University of Bristol
|