Archives for March 2008

It's been two years in the making, a massive commitment by the BBC to tell the epic story of how Northern Ireland became the place it is today. Tonight, at 9.00 pm, the Blueprint season is launched with the first of a three-part TV series on BBC One NI. There are follow-up programmes on Wednesday night, and a radio series begins next Saturday.

We have a new Blueprint website, which will grow and grow to become, I hope, a major portal for exploring our past (see here). The website goes live after the first programme in the series. In tonight's TV programme, we explore our landscape and how it was formed over a period of millions of years. Find out how Ireland became an island.

The BBC will also be hosting "The Blueprint Experience", in partnership with the Ulster Museum, on Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th April at the BBC's Blackstaff House in Belfast. The event is free and tickets will become available following the television broadcast tonight at 9.50 pm. You can register for tickets online here or call the Ticket Line on 0870 333 1918.

Natalie Maynes, Blueprint's series producer (take a bow, Natalie) has written about the perils of natural history productions for BBC Online (read her article here). She recalls the day we tried to paddle in a boat along the river Bann, when the production team had to be rescued by a safety expert who waded into the river and pulled them and their boat back to the launch point. I should point out that no presenters or producers were injured during the making of Blueprint.

Dr Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on 4 April, 1968, and we'll be considering his legacy on this week's Sunday Sequence. King was the youngest person in history to receive the Nobel Peace Prize -- at the age of 35. What he achieved, in terms of the cultural transformation of America, before his death at the young age of 39, is a lesson in the art of living a life that makes a difference. I'm particularly interested in exploring Dr King's distinctive theological and political commitments, and how one set of commitments informed the others.

Also this weekend, we'll be marking the 400th anniversary of the birth of John Milton, one of the greatest poets of the English language -- and one of the English language's most political poets. Politics and religion are united in the works of Milton, as they are in the works of Martin Luther King, and we'll be examining that heady ideological mix with three of the UK's leading Milton scholars, including the distinguished biographer Claire Tomalin.

I want no funny comments about this press picture for Blueprint, our natural history series which begins on Monday night.

The picture features our two science experts, Peter Woodman and Emily Murray, standing either side of yours truly. The shot was taken during a break from filming on Mountsandel Fort, near Coleraine. Within a hundred yards of this spot is the site of the earliest human settlement in Ireland. In fact, the distinguished archeologist who identified that site as the cradle of civilisation in Ireland, back in 1973, is standing to my right in the picture.

I've been doing various bits and pieces of promotion for the series, including interviews with the press, and that will continue for the next few days. I'll be making a visit to the John Daly Show tomorrow, and the Stephen Nolan Show on Monday morning. On that occasion, I'll be joined by Paul McGuigan, BBC NI's head of factual TV and Blueprint's executive producer.

On Sunday morning, quite separately, we'll be talking about the age of rocks. There's been some renewed debate about the age of Ireland, and whether this island is millions of years old or merely a few thousand. Many of you have pursued that debate on this blog and in other online venues. So, we'll be inviting four guests to debate the question following the 9.00 am news on Sunday. A young earth creationist, and intelligent design theorist, a theistic evolutionist, and an atheistic evolutionist -- how's that for a balanced panel? Those four positions pretty much represent the variety of possible positions one might hold on the question of planetary (and human) origins. My guests will be Professor Peter Bowler, Professor David Livingstone, Rev Dr Robert Beckett, and Professor Norman Nevin. I'll leave you to work out who's who in that line-up.

You are welcome to suggest, here, questions that I might put to individual panelists.

Three weeks ago, few outside his church in Chicago knew who he was. Now, Jeremiah Wright is one of the most famous public figures in America, and he could be the reason why American history books do not record the tenure of a President Obama. The character and policies of the American president have a remarkable influence on the rest of the world, more so than ever before. Which is why every citizen of the world has a vested interest in who replaces George W. Bush. A number of websites have now been established to counteract some of the alleged media misrepresentations of Jeremiah Wright. Here is an example:

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Jamie Rubin, a former assistant to President Bill Clinton, and now a member of Hillary Clinton's campaign team, has dismissed David Trimble as a "crankpot". Mr Rubin was responding to Trimble's comments about Hillary Clinton's claim that she was "instrumental" in the bringing about peace in Northern Ireland. Lord Trimble had previously suggested that Senator Clinton's claim was "a wee bit silly". Rubin, a former spokesman for the US State Department, slurs David Trimble in an interview with MSNBC (watch here).

Samantha Power, one of Barack Obama's foreign policy advisers, was forced to resign from his campaign a few weeks ago after describing Mrs Clinton as a "monster" (in what she hoped would be an off-the-record comment). The Clinton campaign may be under some pressure to distance itself from Rubin's attack on a Nobel Peace Prize-winning politician who served for four years as Northern Ireland's First Minister.

Barack Obama has been villified in the United States -- mostly by Hillary Clinton's campaign -- for attending the church in Chicago pastored for 36 years by Dr Jeremiah Wright. Mrs Clinton says she would have resigned her membership of Trinity United Church of Christ congregation in protest at the sermons preached there by the pastor. The fact that Barack Obama has refused to resign from the church (or to dismiss his former mentor as a race warrior) is evidence, according to the Clinton campaign, that Mr Obama is not fit to be president. Step forward Professor Martin Marty, America's most distinguished historian of Christianity. In an article published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Professor Marty defends the record of Jeremiah Wright and does so as one of the ten thousand members of the same congregation in Chicago.

He writes: "Yes, while Trinity is "unapologetically Christian," as the second clause in its motto affirms, it is also, as the other clause announces, "unashamedly black." From its beginning, the church has made strenuous efforts to help black Christians overcome the shame they had so long been conditioned to experience. That its members and pastor are, in their own term, "Africentric" should not be more offensive than that synagogues should be "Judeocentric" or that Chicago's Irish parishes be "Celtic-centric." Wright and colleagues insist that no hierarchy of races is involved. People do not leave Trinity ready to beat up on white people; they are charged to make peace."

Martin Marty is not uncritical. Trinity's honouring of the controversial preacher Louis Farrakhan was, according to Mr Marty, "abhorrent and indefensible, and Wright's fantasies about the U.S. government's role in spreading AIDS distracting and harmful." These are failures of judgment by the pastor, but not in themselves indications of a racist trajectory in his thinking. These comments from one of the most respected scholars of religion and culture in American public life go some distance in counteracting the challenge to Senator Obama's judgement. Time will tell if these words, and other replies, will be enough.

Until the launch of Blueprint, our natural history series. But then you knew that, didn't you? Have you seen one of our TV teasers yet? You can watch here. In addition, you may have noticed one of our billboards in various towns and cities across Northern Ireland. My colleagues in the BBC's marketing department and press office have done a terrific job on the various elements of the campaign leading up to next Monday's launch day. Look out for more press coverage in the next few days.

(4000 years ago, there were Brown Bears in Ireland.)

I've been presenting Evening Extra, our drive-time news programme, for the past couple of days. News programmes present me with a challenge I don't have to deal with on Sunday Sequence -- the pips. They appear in my computer running order as "GTS", meaning "Greenwich Time Signal" (though they haven't indicated Greenwich Mean Time since 1972 -- we now use international atomic time).

It really doesn't get more "BBC" than the six-pip time signal, and "crashing the pips" (talking over them) is something we try to avoid. In fact, I've heard stories of presenters in bygone years being called to editors' offices to explain how they managed to crash. Sometimes, in the dash and splash of a live news programme, crashing may be unavoidable, but it's certainly not encouraged. I have contrived ways to stop talking seven or eight seconds before the hour to make space for the six-pip time signal. The easiest way to avoid crashing, I've found, is to have a broadcast assistant give me a ten-second countdown in talkback (our communication system between producers and presenter). This didn't work last night because the weatherman, giving the prospects for the week ahead, got as far as Wednesday before realising he had only 10 seconds left to do Thursday, Friday and the weekend -- I just had time to say "Thanks", before I heard the beginning of the pips ringing out let a death-toll. Thankfully, there is no stewards' enquiry into pip-crashing these days.

Before we had pips, a pianist in the studio played notes that chimed like the bongs of Big Ben. Pianists across Britain can thank Frank Dyson, the then Astronomer Royal, for the loss of work, for it was he who, in 1923, proposed a new public time signal that would enable everyone in the country to set their clocks and watches accurately. Though, if we still had pianists instead of the electronic time signal, I could have stared menacingly at him or her last night and given the weatherman more time to finish his read. (In other words, I could have played for time, while the pianist played for time.)

Here's a question for you. Each of the six pips is a tenth of a second, except the last, which is a full half-second. Why is the last pip longer than the previous five?

It's not like me to plug someone else's programme, but Melvyn Bragg's "In Our Time" -- essentially a weekly tutorial on intellectual history every Thursday morning on Radio 4 -- was particularly interesting this week. (Listen again here.)

The philosophers Jonathan Rée, Clare Carlisle, and John Lippitt are Melvyn's conversation partners in this programme which examines the life and work of Søren Kierkegaard. Few have exerted more influence on the development of contemporary religious thought than Kierkegaard. He is sometimes described as the father of existentialism, a connection which almost dates him these days. In fact, postmodern theologians often turn to Kierkegaard's writings in exploring contemporary questions and many are taken by his sense of irony and his willingness to challenge long-supposed dichotomies in reasoning.

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Cardinal Keith O'Brien, Scotland's Catholic primate, is using his Easter sermon to attack the government's new Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill as "monstrous". Amongst other provisions, the new law will allow the creation of hybrid human-animal embryos. Cardinal O'Brien wants the Prime Minister to give Labour MPs a free vote on the bill.

We've debated this controversial bill on Sunday Sequence, and I've interviewed Lord Alton, a leading anti-abortion campaigner, who has been at the forefront of opposition to the bill in the House of Lords. Because of the office he holds in Scotland, Cardinal O'Brien, who was born and raised in Northern Ireland, has considerable influence in shaping public debate nationally about ethical issues. And because of his straight-talking style, he has used that platform to take a stand on pro-life issues and has been able to capture the public's imagination -- and the headlines.

Whether you agree or disagree with the cardinal's views, you have no doubt where he stands on these issues. He speaks clearly and colourfully -- sometimes more colourfully than other church leaders would be comfortable doing. Setting aside the cardinal's theological position on abortion and embryology, he is plainly skilled at getting his message into the headlines, and his counterparts in Ireland, Catholic and Protestant, may be studying his style this weekend (if they have any sense) for some lessons on how to manage the media. Keith O'Brien uses the podcast on his personal website to attack the government's support for what he describes as "Frankenstein science." (How many Irish church leaders have podcasts?)

So here's a challenge for you. If you had a public platform, which issue would you wish to raise on the front pages of national newspapers -- and how would you raise the issue? What message would you like to communicate? Which ethical issue would you like the entire country to talk about?

If you missed Thursday's Royal Maundy Service from Armagh -- the first time the service has been held outside England and Wales -- you can watch it again here. I present this 90-minute programme, which was brodcast live on Maundy Thursday, produced by Paul Doran and directed by Davy McCoy.

Today, for the first time in the eight-century history of the ceremony, the Royal Maundy Service will be held outside of England and Wales. Saint Patrick's Cathedral in Armagh is the venue for this year's service, with the Queen distributing the Maundy Money to 164 pensioners from across Northern Ireland. Her Majesty will be accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, and supported by the Queen's Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard. The Choir of Saint Patrick's will join musical forces with the Choir of the Chapel Royal, under the direction of Andrew Gant. The four church leaders, including Cardinal Sean Brady, will take part and pronounce the Blessing together at the close of the service. And you can watch this unique and historic ceremony live on BBC One NI from 11.15 this morning (with an edited highlights programme later tonight). I've been researching the history of the service and the ceremony at its heart for a few days in preparation for presenting our coverage from a terrific vantage point at the West Door of the Cathedral.

Anyone have any idea what this mystery object is? That's a coin to the bottom left of the object, which gives a sense of the scale. Leave your suggestions below.

Here's a clue.

A French court has told a woman suffering from an incurable facial tumour that doctors cannot assist her suicide. Chantal Sebire (pictured) suffers from esthesioneuroblastoma, a rare cancer of the nasal cavity which will progressively damage her brain and eventually kill her. Already her ability to see, taste and smell has been significantly impacted.

France passed a law in 2005 which allows families and doctors of terminally-ill patients to withhold life-sustaining treatment, but the courts have made it clear that this law in no way permits active measures to provoke death. In other words, "passive euthanasia" (withholding treatment) is legal, while "active euthanasia" (deliberately acting to end a patient's life) remains illegal.

The consequence of this court decision is that Ms Sebire now faces months or years of living with a progressively more painful and debilitating condition. During that time, she may decide to refuse all medical assistance except pain relief. Alternatively, she could decide to travel to Switzerland,Belgium or the Netherlands, where assisted suicide (under certain circumstances) is legal. Ms Sabire has chosen not to appeal this judgment, and her friends say she may soon check into a Swiss clinic specialising in assisted suicide.

For more information on the medical aspects of Chantal Sebire's condition, see here and here.

Chantal Sebire's condition is rare and extremely complex. But the arguments her case raises, on both sides of the euthanasia debate, are very familiar. The drift within law in various European countries has been towards a more permissive response to tragic situations such as this one. Nevertheless, assisted suicide remains a criminal offence in Britain, Ireland and in most European jurisdictions.

Is it time to change the law to give doctors the legal freedom to act deliberately to end the life of a terminally-ill patient who faces months and years of suffering before their inevitable death?

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Whether he came from England, Scotland or Wales -- we can't be sure -- one thing we do know is that Saint Patrick wasn't from Ireland. This 5th century Roman Briton was apparently abducted at the age of 16 and brought to Ireland by slave-traders; six years later, he escaped back to the larger island to the right of us, then returned as a missionary priest some years after that. If there are no snakes in Ireland it is because of the Ice Age, rather than Patrick's episcopal crook. But the influence of Christianity on this island, which this legendary figure has come to embody and symbolise, has been immense. Few of Patrick's writings have survived, but we do have two documents, his Confession and his Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus, which give us a sense of the person behind the legend

We remember him today in Ireland because March 17 is thought to be the day on which he died sometime after AD 460 (ish). His grave is reputed to be outside Down Cathedral in Downpatrick -- which certainly sounds like the place where the saint was laid down to his rest. Down's claim is not undisputed, however Another tradition has it that St. Patrick ended his days in England and was buried in Glastonbury. The Chapel of St. Patrick still exists as part of Glastonbury Abbey.

I'm not a betting man, but if I was, my money would be on Wales as the birthplace of Patrick. As for his burial site, your guess is as good as mine; but I'm not prepared to challenge the claim of Down Cathedral.

Incidentally, as this image shows, Patrick is also venerated within the Orthodox Communion, with many examples of icons celebrating his life and work.

A Catholic bishop has infuriated members of the Scottish Parliament with offensive comments about gay people. The Labour MSP George Foulkes has now tabled a motion condemning the statement by Bishop Joseph Devine, the Bishop of Motherwell. In a lecture given at St Aloysius' College, Glasgow, on Tuesday, the bishop claimed that gay people attend Holocaust memorial events in order to "create for themselves the image of a group of people under persecution". Mr Foulkes dismissed the comments as "unfortunate, outdated and un-Christian."

A separate motion has been filed by the Liberal Democrat MSP Iain Smith calling on Cardinal Keith O'Brien, President of the Bishops' Conference of Scotland, to disassociate himself from the comments and pledge support for gay asylum seekers from Iran who may face the death penalty if deported from the UK.

The bishop seems to think that gay groups are trying to hijack Holocaust commemorations. Yet, in addition to the millions of Jews who died in Nazi death camps during the Holocaust, other minority groups also lost their lives, including people with mental and physical disabilities, Jehovah's Witnesses, Freemasons, Roma, Serbs, Poles, and political prisoners. Gay men also faced significant persecution at the hands of the Nazis. Tens of thousands of gay men were sent to camps for "rehabilitation", where they were required to wear the distinctive pink triangle on their prison uniforms. Sometimes castrations were ordered by the courts. Torture and sexual abuse of gay prisoners was not uncommon. For this reason, the pink triangle later became a symbol of the international gay rights movement. Unlike many of the other groups who were liberated from the camps at the close of the war, homosexuality remained illegal in post-war Germany and other European countries including Britain.

Perhaps the Bishop of Motherwell is unaware of the persecution of gay men by the Nazis, which would make the presence of gay groups at a Holocaust Memorial entirely appropriate.

Meanwhile, The Times reports that Christine Shaw, the head of the U.K. 's Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, has made a statement underlying the importance of remembering all the victims of the Holocaust, 'be they Jewish, disabled, gay or lesbian people.'" Ms Shaw's statement emphasizes that Holocaust Memorial Day "is also about learning the lessons of the past to encourage society to tackle all forms of prejudice, including anti-Semitism, racism and homophobia."

One of Ireland's leading authorities on ecological justice has found himself at the centre of an e-mail scam. Fr Sean McDonagh, a Columban missionary priest has been my guest on a number of programmes dealing with climate change and other environmental issues. In the past few days, friends and colleagues of Sean received an e-mail from his personal e-mail address explaining that he was in urgent need of help. The e-mail, which purported to come from Sean, said that he had lost his bags, including his passport and money, and needed friends to wire him money to help him get home (whereupon the money would be repaid). Sunday Sequence also received the e-mail, and producer Martin O'Brien called the headquarters of the Columban Mission in Ireland to see if the e-mail was authentic. It seems that someone in Nigeria managed to gain access to Sean's web-based e-mail account and sent the e-mail without his knowledge to the names listed in his address book. If you have received an e-mail seeking urgent financial help from Sean, you should rest assured that he is safe and well.

I've asked Paul Bailie, the executive director of Mission Africa, a Northern Irish organisation which works in Nigeria, to explain why that country is sometimes described as the "home" of the 419 e-mail scam.

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Meet the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the pastor who brought Barack Obama to Christianity, officiated at his wedding, baptised his children, provided him with years of spiritual advice and the title for his bestselling book, The Audacity of Hope. The pastor gives the kind of endorsement in this sermon that may harm rather than help Obama's bid for the Democratic nomination.

The candidate has been increasingly distancing himself from the pastor's comments, especially since it has emerged that Jeremiah Wright used a sermon to claim that the 9/11 attacks were like "chickens coming home to roost". Obama's enemies are clearly now trying to link the pastor's language, which they regard as "hate speech", with Obama himself.

Barack Obama has explained that he joined Pastor Wright's church, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, nearly 20 years ago. He says, "Reverend Wright preached the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life," he wrote. "... And the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor and to seek justice at every turn." Barack and Michelle Obama continue to members of the church following Pastor Wright's retirement, under the new leadership of the Reverend Otis Moss, III.

Senator Obama is not alone in facing calls to repudiate sermons by pastoral supporters. The Republican candidate for President, John McCain, has come under pressure to denounce a televangelist supporter, the Reverend Rod Parsley, who has preached about a "clash of civilisations" between Islam and Christianity.

This is one of the most amazing things you will see this year. New technology that allows a computer to translate the neurological activity into speech. In a sense, it means a computer is able to read my mind and translate that into spoken language. Stephen Hawking would no longer need to type his words; he could simply think aloud (literally). The scientists developing this technology are also working on a new device that would allow people to interact with the internet mentally, without the need for a keyboard. Imagine you're walking down the street and need directions. Just think the question into the device and wait for the internet to speak the directions aloud for you. The implications of this new technology are astonishing. Imagine the military intelligence implications alone. If this technology is successfully developed, it will change our world in the most fundamental ways. Watch this demonstration -- it will blow you away.

As readers of this blog will know, I spent most of last year filming a major new television natural history series called "Blueprint". The series was produced by Natalie Maynes and Carole O'Kane -- who have lived and breathed rocks, dinosaurs and woolly mammoths for the better part of 18 months -- with executive producer Paul McGuiggan keeping us all in line. The series attempts to tell the story of 600 million years of natural history -- or, in the words of our website blurb, "how we got here and what we all came from. Using stunning special effects the series uncovers some amazing facts about the land around us." That doesn't come close to summing up the series. The Blueprint brand is uniting TV, radio and the internet in the most ambitious multi-platform project we've ever attempted at BBC Northern Ireland. I'll be writing more about the project for newspapers in the next few days, but look out for the media campaign that has already begun. We'll have billboards across Northern Ireland, TV and radio trails, newspaper ads, and lots more, including a major educational outreach project for schools and a dedicated new website on the natural history of Northern Ireland. The first programme is screened on Monday, 31 March at 9pm on BBC One NI.

Is it possible to enjoy a night out without alcohol? I'm in the middle of filming a documentary for the BBC exploring our relationship with alcohol -- from binge-drinking to social drinking, from alcoholism to teetotalism. On Saturday night, I'll be hosting a party with a difference in Belfast's Black Box (18 Hill Street). Good music and good company, but no alcohol. If you'd like to come, admission is free (as are the alcohol free drinks) and the only condition is that you won't mind the presence of a camera crew. Doors open at 8pm. Drop in or stay for the evening. The Northern Ireland Soul Troop goes on stage from 9pm. Then we try to have fun while staying sober. I know, I know: it will be a challenge for some of us. But I have a wild card up my sleeve. Brian Henry Martin and Ronan Feeley, my esteemed director and producer respectively, have given me the power to open the bar after 10.30 p.m. if I decide that the party needs rescuing. See you there?

The Catholic Communications Network has published a clarification following world-wide coverage of the Seven Deadly Sins story. Rather belatedly, they now make it clear that the Vatican is not publishing an official "list" of new sins. Instead, it appears that a senior Vatican official in the published interview was exploring how the traditional idea of sin (and "deadly" or "mortal" sins) should be interpreted in the context of the modern world. The official then listed some examples of modern sins that would endanger a person's soul without Confession. It's worth pointing out that the original list of Seven Deadly Sins, which originates with Pope Gregory in the 6th century, was never intended as a full and final list; this traditional account of sin has been expanded and, to a degree, complicated in the centuries since. It is therefore not at all unusual that a Vatican theologian should speculate about how that account may be further expanded to deal with the world today.

The Monsignor in question will no doubt have learned that this is the kind of subject that will interest the media -- and massively so. He is probably sitting in front of a computer screen as I write wondering how he managed to trigger such an avalanche of news coverage across the world.

The Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland has been making new friends. There is some chuckling, but that's as far as the political partnership has gone so far. Add your suggested photocaption below.

(No prizes, of course; just the satisfaction of seeing your answer on the screen!)

Italy's highest court has handed down an astonishing judgment. In the same week that the Vatican has expressed concern that Catholics are abandoning Confession and losing their grip on the concept of "sin", Italy's Court of Cassation has ruled that married Italian women who commit adultery may legally lie about their bit on the side. Apparently, the court considers that being exposed as an adulterer would threaten a woman's honour, so it upholds the "right" of a woman to lie about her affair even in judicial investigations. This means she may lie to the police and lie under oath in a court with impunity. Italian men are, understandably, now asking if they enjoy the same legal protection. This ruling is so bizarre I thought I'd misread news reports, but I assure you that this is an accurate reporting of the Court's decision.

Incidentally, this is the same Court that ruled, previously, that a woman wearing jeans could not -- by definition -- be raped, since the fact that she was wearing jeans means they could only be removed with her permission. That judgment was later overturned after a pubic outcry. I suspect this new ruling may suffer the same fate. I imagine the Governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, wishes he had a court like that in his state. The Governor has now been given two days to resign before facing impeachment proceedings after acknowledging his role in a prostitution ring. Prostitution is currently illegal in the state of New York and the governor earned his reputation as "the Sherriff of Wall Street" through his work as an anti-corruption campaigner. In his previous guise as Attorney General, he also targeted prostitution rings in his state.

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Another question about journalistic ethics is raised by the resignation of Barack Obama's foreign policy adviser Samantha Power. Ms Power was born in Dublin in 1970 and raised in the United States, where she works as an academic at Harvard. She is also a very accomplished writer; her book "A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide" won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003. She visited Queen's University last week as part of her ultimately controversial visit to the UK and was interviewed on Radio Ulster.

In an interview last week with The Scotsman, Ms Power described Hillary Clinton as "a monster", then immediately claimed her comment was "off the record". Not so, according to the editor of The Scotsman, who ran the entire interview, including Ms Power's hurried attempt to take back the offending word. Since then, she has had to resign from the Obama campaign team and has apologised to anyone wishing to listen. The Clinton campaign have made hay with the comment for the past few days, and Power's resignation has been widely covered in the US media.

Here's the question. Was The Scotsman right to run a quote which was "off-the-record"? According to the newspaper, the monster-quote was, in fact, on-the-record because the entire interview -- as part of Ms Power's book tour -- was arranged in advance as on-the-record. When an interview is on-the- record, the newspaper can use the quote, even if the interviewee regrets having said what they said afterwards. On the other hand, Samantha Power was quick to mark off the phrase as "off-the-record" and therefore non-attributable. Unfortunately for her, she claimed that protection after having uttered the newsworthy word. Though, even then, the newspaper may have taken the view that the entire interview was on-the-record and there are no opt-outs permitted in the middle of the interview. It seems clear, at least, that reporters in the US may have a different approach to the on-the-record rule, and Ms Power may have thought that British journalists follow the same policies. British and Irish journalists often complain that their US counterparts are too deferential in their approach to senior political figures. Perhaps a different attitude to the on-the-record rule is partly due to deference. In any case, after the Samantha Power affair, I expect that interviewees on both sides of the Atlantic will be considerably more careful about what they say and how they say it.

If Pope Benedict visits Ireland next year, as many people expect, he could face protests by Catholic groups. Henry McDonald writes in The Guardian:

"Sean O'Conaill, the coordinator of Voice of the Faithful in Ireland, which includes Catholic priests as well as abuse victims, said that if the bishops refused to arrange a meeting between the victims and the Pope there would be "outrage and disgust". "In that situation we would be forced to consider dignified protests during the papal visit. A boycott by contrast would be silent and unheard. There would be serious consideration given to protests," he said. He added that the group's sister organisation across the Atlantic, Voice of the Faithful USA, would consider similar action if the Pope failed to meet their members on his expected visit to the US."

The Seven Deadly Sins -- sloth, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, wrath and pride -- made famous in Dante's Inferno, have just been updated by the Vatican with a new list of deadly (or "mortal") sins that includes drug-dealers, environmental polluters and the excessively wealthy. The list of new sins, published yesterday in the Vatican newspaper, seems to be part of a new strategy by the Pope and his advisers to redeem the concept of "sin" in the contemporary world. Many Catholics across the world have given up the practice of Confession; in Italy itself, 60 per cent of Catholics are no longer participating in this sacrament. Pope Benedict thinks secularisation is part of the explanation for that change in Catholic practice; but he also believes that many priests need to develop more "tenderness" in their approach to their role. Recently, some priests have been offered retraining to develop more compassionate personal qualities in an effort to attract the faithful back to Confession.

According to Catholic teaching, sins come in one of two species. "Mortal sins" are a "grave violation of God's law" and result in "eternal death" if unrepented by the act of confession. "Venial" sins, on the other hand, impede a soul's progress towards God. The Vatican's new list includes: genetic modification, carrying out experiments on humans, polluting the environment, causing social injustice, causing poverty, becoming obscenely wealthy and taking drugs.

This new list is sure to provoke some debate among Catholic ethicists and theologians. How much money does one have to earn before one is classified as "obscenely wealthy"? Is taking a recreational drug like Exstacy really comparable to murder? Are all experiments on humans (even those where human subjects have agreed to participate) equally "sinful"? How do we define "social injustice"? Would the economic policies promoted by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s place the former Prime Minister in a fast car to perdition?

Would anyone like to confess anything?

Keen observers of the race for the Democratic nomination in the United States may be able to help me understand this curious turn of events.

First, the basic facts. There are 611 state delegates still to be decided before a candidate can be decided. In addition, there are 349 super-delegates who have yet to commit to either candidate. This means that Hillary Clinton needs to win 58 per cent of the remaining delegates in order to secure the nomination, while Barack Obama needs only 42 per cent of the delegates.

Now the question: Why is the Clinton campaign currently hinting in public that Hillary would be prepared to put together a dream ticket with Barack Obama as her vice-president? If there is any dream ticket, shouldn't the runner-up be Veep?

The title of Ed Moloney's updated biography of Ian Paisley. Ed was my guest this morning, alongside Eilish Rooney, Henry Patterson and Jim Dougal. Feel free to add your views here to those expressed in the radio discussion. When the dust settles, how will history judge the legacy of Ian Paisley?

After last night's fightback by Hillary Clinton, the only thing that seems clear is that Democrats can't decide at present between the election of America's first woman president or first black president. At the moment, the candidates are fighting more about universal health care than foreign policy. But in the weeks ahead, we can expect the war on terror to climb in the public agenda, now that Republicans have selected a war hero who personally experienced torture as their candidate. John McCain has a strong track record in opposition the use of torture techniques in the battle against terrorism. Recent statements by Hillary Clinton have parsed the difference between torture and other "softening" techniques.

Stanford psychologist Philip Zimbardo, who conducted the famous experiment at Stanford University in 1971 in which students posed as prisoners and guards, has authored a new book exploring why ordinary people are prepared to engage in extraordinarily evil acts. In this interview, he explores the role of US soldiers in Abu Ghraib and draws on so-far unpublished images depicting nudity, degradation, simulated sex acts and guards posing with corpses. Viewer discretion is strongly advised in pursuing the link to those gruesome and offensive images.

The human rights organisation Amnesty Internation is encouraging the public to take a stand against the presumed inevitability of torture in our world (see here). Between now and November, the US electorate will want to know where its presidential candidates stand on one of the key issues of out time.

Many thanks to Davy Sims for blog-sitting. I'm back with a question about journalistic ethics. Between checking in on the latest reports from Ohio and Texas about the likelihood of Hillary Clinton's campaign finally imploding, I've been following the story of Colin Norris, the nurse convicted today of murdering four elderly patients in his care.

The press have already nicknamed Norris "the angel of death" -- which appears to be entirely justified given the appalling nature of his crimes. But it's other descriptions of this serial killer that have left me wondering. In a number of today's papers, Norris is described as a "gay nurse". He is also described as a "male nurse".

Now there is no doubt that Colin Norris is both gay and male. I just question the appropriateness of pointing out either characteristic in the context of journalistic reports. To describe a nurse called Colin as "male" seems, first, to state the obvious pointlessly. Secondly, to emphasis Norris's gender in the pseudo-title "male nurse" is to mark out male nurses as somehow a breed apart from other nurses -- much as the old-fashioned expression "women police constable" unhelpfully separates female police officers from their male counterparts.

The other phrase -- "gay nurse" -- is much more worrysome. First, Norris's sexuality is entirely unrelated to the crimes he committed and is therefore irrelevant in reports of the crime. Second, calling attention to Norris's sexuality in reports of his crimes runs the risk of further prejudicing public opinion in respect of gay people more generally.

Imagine if a report today described Norris as a "Catholic nurse" or an "Anglican nurse"? Imagine, for that matter -- had he not been gay -- a report describing him as a "heterosexual nurse". We would all, quite rightly, wonder if the reporter had lost his or her way (or mind). If a particular crime is sexual in nature, it would be perfectly reasonable to describe the sexuality of the perpetrator. Similarly, if gender appears to play a role in a crime, it would be appropriate to draw attention to the criminal's gender in an explication of, say, the power and abuse dynamic that has unfolded. In this case, there seems to be no basis for drawing attention either to Norris's gender or to his sexuality. Journalists have become increasingly aware of the dangers of racially profiling perpetrators in reports. The ethnicity of a criminal is not necessarily a relevant detail in a story -- particularly, if drawing attention to a person's ethnicity runs the risk of advancing racist prejudice within society. Surely the same should hold true for other personal traits such as sexuality and gender.

Davy Sims - still here for William Crawley. ('Cause I'd rather work in my pajamas.)

When Newspapers or News Broadcasters use the Internet to engage with the audience it’s usually no more than “Send us your pictures”, or “Tell us what you think”. I’m Editor New Media in BBC Northern Ireland and the response I get from the audience to the “Tell us what you think” is “I don’t care what they think. If I care what someone thinks, I prefer it is someone with an informed opinion rather than just an opinion.”

That’s what I was going to cover in this post, until I saw this. “Newly discovered JFK assassination items revealed” (Free sign in required) The Dallas Morning News sets it up like a drama – which to some extent it is.

An old safe is discovered in a Dallas courthouse. Once opened, its contents reveal a secret cache of files related to the death of President John F. Kennedy. There is an assassin's gun holster, brass knuckles and a transcript of a "smoking gun" conversation to kill the president.

You can read the whole story on the Dallas Morning News Site. (BTW, although the internet now allows me to read newspapers I would never have dreamed of, I’m not a regular of the Dallas Morning News and should credit Cybersoc for pointing to this story.)

I know public participation in public broadcasting is important; it’s just sometimes I wish we in the Main Stream Media were more creative about how the public and they (we, of course) can work together. The classic public participation on the internet was - and still is - SETI @ Home which helped and still helps scientists use your idle computer time by linking your computer to a grid. There is an idea floating around (perhaps now in operation) to use the power of CATCHPAs (that little test you get in some online forms to test whether you are a human). Part of the CATCHPA would also be part of a mathematical formula and by copying in letters/digits you would join with millions of others to perform a calculation. Don’t ask me for details, I’m only a DJ that made good.

This interesting thing about both the SETI and CATCHPA projects is that they are scientists asking for your help not your opinion. MSM only seem to be interested in your opinion (oh, and your photos).

Dallas Morning News are going the way of the scientists and in what would appear to be a very exciting way. On This page they describe the idea

Below is one, large chunk of the documents. In the coming days, dallasnews.com will share more of them for your review. The documents contained here are those that the district attorney's office made available in electronic form – an estimated 90 percent of all the documents from the vault. Another 10 percent had not yet been scanned when these files were released to The Dallas Morning News. The contents include transcripts, personal and official letters, newspaper clippings, lists of jurors, police reports, rap sheets, autopsy reports, trial notes, police notebooks, photographs and much more. The documents appear here exactly as they were received by The News . They are neither cataloged nor indexed, and they are in no apparent order. Given the volume, we haven't been able to review most of the files. That's why were calling on you. Here's your chance to review never-seen-before materials related to the JFK assassination.

So – I’m tempted to ask – what do you think?

I’d rather know what you found.

Davy Sims, blog sitting for William.

The hardest thing about being a travel journalist on the radio (one of my many previous jobs) was finding people in the countries you visit to interview; distance, language, planning and this was before 1) general use of email and internet and 2) wide availability of mobile phone.

I was thinking about my first assignment in the early hours of this morning. I was in Istanbul for a few days. It was about 12 or 14 years ago. Later I was to learn how to begin setting up contacts in far away places, but for this one I was on a tight rope with out a safety net. I had literally nothing set up. For the early part of the first day a City Guide gave me my first interview looking over the city from the British Council. Although I was new to this, the last thing I wanted my report to be was an official interpretation of the city from someone employed to do that. I was after character and story. As we wrapped up he said he was a Christian and that I might be interested in meeting his Parish Priest – and Irish Man and minister of the Anglican church. Now, that was unexpected.

Numbers were exchanged and arrangements were made and I was to follow directions to the church on Sunday morning before the first service. I don’t know what I was expecting, but in one of the oldest parts of one of the oldest cities in the world I wasn’t expecting what was what appeared to be an English country parish church. It was built in 1858 and designed by GE Street who was also the architect for the Royal Courts of Justice in London. Christ Church, Istanbul is not difficult to find. If you are ever in the city ...

The Parish Priest was a Church of England minister originally from Dublin. By co-incidence the church found itself in news in January this year.

The congregation was remarkable in their diversity. This Anglican Irishman was parish priest to English people from the nearby British Council and British Consulate. Turkish people from around the city and further away, Tamils from Sri Lanka, and refugees from the first Gulf war who had crossed from Iraq to find safety in Turkey and more especially this church building. They had come to find refuge there and according to the minister began to do repairs to the church.
Among them - Rev. Sherwood told me, were Chaldean Christians. Never heard the name before.

I probably have heard it since and certainly did hear it early this morning on the World Service .