Let no man turn aside, ever so slightly, from the broad path of honour, on the plausible pretence that he is justified by the goodness of his end. All good ends can be worked out by good means.
— Charles Dickens (1812-1870) English Novelist
UK Dissident encourages the killing of British troops
It seems a foreign Muslim is using his London-based radio station to prepare broadcasts in England calling for the deaths of British soldiers in Iraq. Because his programmes are actually sent abroad for broadcast he’s getting away with it.
…there are seemingly no legal or regulatory restrictions to prevent Dr al-Massari from disseminating his messages through his radio, or his website which features videos of bomb attacks on UK troops.
So we can deport him anyway can’t we because, suddenly, this Labour government of ours has discovered that, despite various apologists for terrorism being given free reign to preach their hatred here for years, we had the necessary laws all along. So off you go, Dr Muhammad al-Massari.
Er, not so fast:
The problem, though, would be where to send him. In Saudi Arabia, he might be liable to torture and, though he was almost dispatched to Dominica in the 1990s, no other destination has been suggested.
Ah. So because he has upset another country’s laws and because we, the high-minded British, are a bit fussy about how that foreign country treats its own citizens, we have to put up with him instead. He is free to encourage the killing of our soldiers because we are concerned with his well-being.
He has a website too:
The material on it, including beheadings, so-called acts of martyrdom and advice on terrorist warfare, is shocking to many people - but it does not contravene any UK laws.
Somebody remind me again: why do we put the well-being of people like this before the well-being of our own? Am I being a bit nasty to suggest that, in the hierarchy of things, British subjects should be catered for before foreign Britain-haters? Am I being a bit, you know, racist?
Yep, I guess I am.
However, I am an optimist. I hope the necessary furore over this man will encourage Blair to see a populist opportunity - he rarely misses one - and send this man back to face the music in his own country.
New York waitresses and foreign tips
It seems the best tippers in New York are… New Yorkers.
From Village Voice:
New Yorkers are the best tippers on earth. They’ve been aware of the minimum dollar-a-drink rule ever since they got their first fake ID on West 4th Street. Some don’t like it, but most know it. And most do it.
Tipping in the UK is still a voluntary thing, where we tip either because the service was out-standing or because we don’t want to look cheap. In New York tipping forms an essential part of a person’s income - a fact understood by the worker and her boss. (And, I’ll wager, the average New Yorker):
Cocktail waitresses, unlike waitresses and bartenders, usually don’t even get a piddling shift pay. As far as my manager is concerned, there is a direct correlation between my income and my ability to hustle. There are no guarantees, he once told me, but if you really work your ass off you can succeed here. And if you make $37 one night . . . hey, shit happens.
I’ve probably had some of the best service of my life in New York. I’ve definitely had the worst. I felt happy to tip at just over 15% for the former (in England I’ll make it about 10% normally) but for the latter I resented paying the bill let alone paying over the odds. I flat refuse to pay over the asking price for service that deserved a slap round the face rather than a gratuity. Would a New Yorker have tipped regardless?
Foreigners often don’t understand the American way with tipping. The waitress staff have their own way to deal with this problem:
Without the option of auto-gratuity they’d have in tonier restaurants, some servers resort to drastic measures. On one of my first days working at a little tourist hot spot of a jazz club, a bartender I used to work with let me in on a little secret. “Overcharge whenever possible,” she cautioned. “If you hear a weird accent, if you can just tell by the look in their eye, the beer is eight bucks rather than six. You keep the extra two—they’ll never know.”
She’s right. Fumbling drunk people in a strange, crowded setting will almost always fork over whatever money you ask for. “Aida,” one of my former co-workers, overcharged all the time. “That’s $118,” she announced one Friday night, without so much as a stutter, to three toasted, cavorting Floridian lushes she “had a bad feeling about.” The real amount was $98. A silicone-breasted blonde handed over her card, not even asking for a printout. Sure enough, the gratuity line on the charge slip later read $5, but Aida just shrugged. “I took care of the tip,” she said. “Works every time.”
We have been warned, methinks…
