yelvington.com

At the risk of once again being told that I hate America, I'm compelled to cite Neil McIntosh's observation that the United States has an ugly characteristic in common with a certain African country: "Were I to take up reporting again and do my thing from Web 2.0 in San Francisco next week, I too could be locked up and thrown out the country - just like reporters from Zimbabwe whose fate she [Mindy McAdams] highlights on her blog. A freelance working for the Guardian suffered this fate a few years back, and I know journalists fall foul of this reasonably regularly. Long weekends in New York get a whole bunch harder after that, I’ll warrant."

It is one thing to have a constitution that protects freedom of speech and of the press, and quite another thing to practice it. But human rights are human rights, not merely citizen rights, or the rights of corporate media, or the privileges of the licensed few.