On Globalization

Tom Jones' enduring popularity
Bonded to the sari loom
Scots oil worker held in NigeriaFacing Glastonbury ticket torture
UK man released from
Guantanamo

Source

One of the marvelous things about Britain having recently owned so very much of the world is that all news is local news. Just like your local TV news hour, the BBC shifts without warning or transition from the grave to the absurd -- you can almost hear the sudden changes in the voice of the anchor reading from the teleprompter, varying pitch and tempo midsentence, like a calliope cranking up and winding down.

I find this particular list of the top 5 most emailed stories (at that particular moment, which is why the link is to a screenshot instead of the original website) satisfying from a technical point of view. The lines may be read as separate thoughts or combined to form sentences, such as:

Tom Jones' enduring popularity bonded to the sari loom.

and

Facing Glastonbury ticket torture, UK man released from Guantanamo.

and so forth, as if a comment on the interconnectedness of life in an era where ideas cover continents in an instant. There is a real cleverness to the combinations, for is the popularity of Tom Jones (or any other entertainer) not dependent on a supply of cheap imported goods, which gives his fans the leisure to appreciate him? And by accepting the role of citizen rather than revolutionary, do we trade Guantanamo for a bureaucratic gilded cage?