There's been some correspondence in the Guardian about the requirements for being a Guardian-reader. There was this letter:
When I first bought the Guardian, the only requirement was a CND badge and good intentions. Then I had to start eating muesli and wearing sandals. Now my newsagent wants proof that I don't watch Friends.It was followed by this one:
Not only do we have to provide evidence of muesli-eating etc, we also need to provide proof from our GPs that our hearts bleed on a daily basis and that our hands bear the scars of much wringing, our teeth of much gnashing...As it's all in jolly good fun, I'd like to throw in my little bit by asking if you can count yourself a true Guardian-reader today if you didn't oppose 'the just and necessary war to liberate Iraq from Baathist tyranny'.
Apropos... Nick Cohen in today's New Statesman (via Harry's Place):
Read the liberal press and you will find that the rage of middle-class liberals and British Islam burns as brightly as it did in February 2003... [T]hat rage is morally ambiguous. Disgust at the Bush administration has pushed liberal opinion around the world into the shameful position that it would not back the opponents of Saddam Hussein. The result of the breakdown in international solidarity is that an Iraqi or Kurdish socialist is more likely to get a fair hearing from the Wall Street Journal than the New York Times; the Daily Telegraph than the Independent.If you click through the above link to Harry's, you can catch the BBC dimension of the thing as well.