Theres lots of fuss about Paul Chambers who was upset about an airport who mentioned about wanting to blow the place up. See #twitterjoketrial or #IAmSpartacus for those wanting to look up on Twitter.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10436629-71.html
Its true people should have freedom of speech, but in all honesty, writing things on Twitter is like wearing a hat with velcro letters stuck on it, only write things you are happy to make public.
Now a large proportion of the Twitter community are defending this chaps actions as ‘freedom of speech’ I think this is daft. If you write something that jovial that might be misconstrued as a threat to a country’s borders in a communication medium which is public, you are really asking for trouble.
Prolific Twitter Stephen Fry has offered to pay the fine for this chap. Seriously Stephen, when you were a comedian and actor you were terrific, but when you go on Top Gear and announce one of your favourite apps for your mobile device is for having casual Gay sex with strangers then I kind of lost respect for you. Keeping your nasty habits to yourself please. Plus this man seems to spend his whole life in Twitter, and where as I like Apple’s products, the clique that use them as little electronic security blankets really quite pathetic and silly. Please Stephen, get back to good television and British wit, oh, and get back to doing another Blackadder again.
This might mean using some common sense and not updating statuses about yourself when you are upset or angry about something, do something sensible like phone up or better meet with a close friend when you want to rant about something when you have a bad day.
After my trip to Rachel’s tomb I took some pictures on the way back….
The white sign shows a welcome to Jerusalem
New house construction in progress. This was stopped for a while during the building freeze which was during talks with the Palestinian Authority.
Houses are far to expensive here, new builds all around the country are necessary to provide for growing Jewish and Arab families. (its common for both types of families to have 5-10 children) Other cities like Karmiel pay about 40% less rent for a similar apartment than Jerusalem residents do. I don’t think of the houses as a settlement, but as part of the regeneration of the sovereign nation of Israel. There is a new school, police station and shops in this district when I went there about 2 month ago.
I stopped outside this church on the Hevron Road. Its a Greek church, and has very pretty gardens.
Everyone had just left when I arrived, I spoke to priest who had tradition Greek Orthodox Christian garb on, asking if I could look around but he said he was just locking up.
There are Arab Christian families on the way back to their cars. I am not sure if these Arab people live the main west part of Jerusalem or if they come across the border that is about 2Km down the road where I have just come from.
Left: There is small cafe and plenty of picnic tables, and looks like a nice place to fellowship with people after the service. I need to come back here another time I think. Right: Poster for Taybeh, a Palestinian beer, on a table in the garden.
Brit In Jerusalem 