This was in response to a story about a young primary school boy who was sent to the head teacher for being racist because he said, "Let's shoot the Germans" when he was playing a war game in the playground. And another boy of six was reprimanded for saying his teacher "had big boobies" when she bent down in front of him. She read out the whole e-mail unedited, apart from explaining what semantics were.

BBCvanessa_24-9-09

Here is the text of an e-mail I sent to the BBC London breakfast show about airport security. Although they didn't read it all, and added a bit of their own, it seemed to strike a chord with presenter Paul Ross.

' morning Paul and Jo

What I object to at airports is being treated like a criminal entering prison, not a citizen going on a journey I've paid for. The law used to be "innocent until proven guilty". I'm sure the security people will argue that there haven't been any attacks so it must be working, but how many people have actually been caught carrying explosives etc. since this new regime was established? Or is it that the so-called terrorists are simply biding their time trying to figure out another way of attacking, while enjoying the chaos they have created. Their fanatic fervour makes them very creative in ways that the more regimented thinking of governments can imagine, which is why armies will never win against guerrillas and insurgents, as we witnessed in wars such as Vietnam. What your previous caller said about watching people makes a lot of sense, although it will lead to ethnic profiling, such as we saw recently in the US when Shah Rukh Khan, possibly one of the most famous film stars in the world, was held by immigration.


Listen to it here

BBCLondon

Featured in Magcloud's blog about publishing Film & Festivals magazine using their print on demand service.

http://magcloud.com/user/magcloud/blog

Had a letter about copyright abuse and the new economy printed in Time Magazine.

In recent days, the papers have been filled with news of the deaths of British soldiers in Afghanistan, with most of them bemoaning the tragic loss of life. For the families of those who died it is tragic, but they are at war, and at war against a ruthless guerilla army on its home ground. There are bound to be deaths. I notice they don't report on how many Afghani people die, whether they are innocent civilians, insurgents of Taliban militia. The other thing that is totally incongruous to me is the shock to military and media that ten British soldiers died in the space of a couple of days, bringing the total death toll to 180 for the war. That is nothing. Have they forgotten how many people died in previous wars such as Vietnam, never mind the World Wars. 180 was more like the hourly figure.

There is all this big noise about the deaths of the British soldiers, but more teenagers are dying on the streets of London from knives, many more are dying in car accidents, dying from alcohol abuse and cigarettes and so many other things that government is making money from to fund their military campaigns. If they want to stop the soldiers dying, stop them invading countries on false pretenses.

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