Your Oral History Can and Will Be Used Against You in a Court of Law

The British are demanding that the United States force Boston College to give up its trove of IRA oral histories to them in order to find prosecutable information.

British success in this endeavor would cast a pall upon the historical profession. Central to oral histories is that the person interviewed will not suffer from their story. In this case, the histories are sealed until the death of the interviewee. Government access to oral histories of sensitive topics would severely undermine historians' ability to collect vital stories about our past from the participants.

Deeply disturbing.

Deep Thought

Didn't my ancestors fight and die in a war so that I wouldn't have to hear endless and insipid coverage about royal weddings. This makes me want to dump some English products in the water or something.

The Queen is Slumming Now

I love that Queen Elizabeth's upcoming visit to Ireland will be the first time the British monarch has traveled to Ireland since 1911. It is pretty far after all.

Top 100 British Films

An interesting list as compiled by Time Out London. Some of the choices are pretty questionable--I'm not sure in what world "Nil By Mouth" is better than "Lawrence of Arabia." And "Nuts in May" is arguably Mike Leigh's worst movie. But I've always enjoyed British film quite a bit. Many of these films are almost unknown in America. See "It Always Rains on Sunday," which I managed to see in Lisbon but I don't think is available in the United States, or at least wasn't at the time. Sadly, I've seen surprisingly few of these films, suggesting how poorly British film is distributed in the U.S.

The Iron Lady Never Would Apologize

David Cameron actually apologized for the Bloody Sunday massacre????

Prime Minister David Cameron offered an extraordinary apology on Tuesday for the 1972 killings of 14 unarmed demonstrators by British soldiers in Northern Ireland, saying that a long-awaited judicial inquiry had left no doubt that the “Bloody Sunday” shootings were “both unjustified and unjustifiable.”

What kind of Conservative is this? Margaret Thatcher would have jumped off a bridge before apologizing for murdering Irish people. What happened to Conservatives oppressing the Irish at every turn? Have they decided to focus solely on something so banal as dismantling the British welfare state?

Moreover, just what is Thatcher thinking about this tonight?

Update: Speaking of the Iron Lady, the YouBetcha Lady hopes to meet her hero. 

Must Read of the Day

Brockington on his personal experiences within the British health care system.

For those who don't read it, the piece makes me want to move to Britain.

Historical Image of the Day

List of purchases of slaves by British slave ship Mangovo George, West Africa, 1785