Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: Thatcher, in reply to Rich Lock,
Glenn Greenwald sums it up best for me: if you’re a public figure like a politician, then you’re open for criticism when you’re alive, and when you’re dead. To declare otherwise is usually an attempt to further an agenda and often rankly hypocritical. I don’t recall anyone buttoning their lips ‘out of respect’ when Hugo Chavez died, and I really doubt that they will when Castro kicks it.
I've had an awful lot of links to that in my Twitter feed over the last 24 hours, and the more I look at it the more I come to wonder if Greenwald has adroitly torched a straw Miss Manners.
And just for the record, Rich, when Chavez died I did ask a few Tweeps to tone down the "piss on his grave"-style rhetoric. I'd also respectfully suggest Greenwald has the dick privilege to not see the pretty rancid and intensely gendered shit that got thrown at Thatcher. And still does at any "aggressive" ANGRY un-woman in politics -- from Gillard through Hillary Clinton to Angela Merkel.
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Hard News: Thatcher, in reply to Russell Brown,
And frankly, when Mandela dies I suspect he's going to end up being a lot like Thatcher in this respect -- when the dust settles, his life is going to be a lot more nuanced and ambiguous that his fans or detractors will comfortably admit. That's how clear-eyed history tends to work.
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Hard News: Thatcher, in reply to Paul Campbell,
"I fully intend to piss on her grave (no matter how long the queue) and believe me she’s still getting off lightly.”
Banks might like to show some fucking decency and remember his partner is going to be visiting his grave in a few months, Perhaps I should show my disdain for anyone who chunters on about desecrating anyone's grave by paying my disrespects with a diuretic and a full bladder, but that's creepy.
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Up Front: Card on the Table, in reply to Emma Hart,
It also doesn’t, I think, have the same impact as an actual boycott, as far as deterring people from working with Card in the future – witness the Superman kerfuffle, which was largely framed around people saying they wouldn’t buy the issue, as well as the damage by association to DC’s brand. So maybe the compromise position isn’t as strong a stand, regardless of how you feel about opyright-cay.
Well put. And as I said up-thread, there's also the larger context of OSC's hiring by DC, namely the company's pretty shit record when it comes to diversity. Alyssa Rosenberg has an interesting piece on An Ethical Guide To Consuming Content Created By Awful People Like Orson Scott Card is relevant here; and well as the post where she points out how DC could actually have learned a thing or two from the movie's producers.
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Hard News: Marshall and the Media, in reply to Alexis Randell,
I have to agree with this. I'm not a fan of Marshall's approach, and the embedded piece from the ABC showed a level of behaviour by Marshall that was frankly disgusting, but there is a level to which we can sometimes justify some level of dubious behaviour in the furtherance of a greater good.
Which is all delightful in theory, but here's the RW problem with that. Whatever low life is editing the Daily Mail and The Sun nowadays will always look you in the eye and claim their latest arseholy fuckery is in the service of a greater good. Every every time. I know this is terribly old fashioned of me, but I'm a strong believer in the notion that when you start lowering the ethical bar (and editorial standards) in newsrooms you shouldn't be at all surprised when it just doesn't stop falling. Where does that end up? Well, ask the New York Times and New Republic if their credibility has recovered from the Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass scandals. Clear a couple of months and read ALL the evidence from the Leveson Inquiry.
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Up Front: Card on the Table, in reply to BenWilson,
Thing is Ben, you’ve made a more principled and thoughtful contrary argument to my position in a few hundred words than Winston Peters managed in ten minutes on Wednesday night. He’s using a referrendum as a pretty feeble fig leaf for his homophobia – he voted against Homosexual Law Reform at all stages and couldn’t be arsed even showing up for the third reading of the HRA Bill.
And you just can’t win – even with a referrenda, the likes of Bob McCoskrie and Colin Craig weren’t willing to accept a result that wasn’t to their liking. Those damn nasty liberals and their evil ballot-posting AGENDA! :(
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Up Front: Card on the Table, in reply to linger,
Quite, LInger. I’d also ask this question of both the “redefining marriage” and “moar referrenda!” crowds.
The Crimes Amendment Act (1985). among other things, criminalized spousal rape. (A pretty serious – as well as welcome as long overdue – “redefinition” of marriage, in my book.)
IIRC, it had been introduced by the previous National Government, went through full Parliamentary scrutiny (including select committee hearings with public submissions) and passed with a substantial bipartisan majority – despite not being a prominent manifesto commitment/campaign issue for either National or Labour.
Anyone else recall Winston Peters saying at the time it was arrogant and anti-democratic not to put that to a referendum? Will anyone ask Peters, Coleman, My Evil Namesake and Bob McCoskrie if they believe so now?
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Up Front: Card on the Table, in reply to linger,
Meanwhile, I/S obliges with a list of who changed their votes:
Yeah, anyone who follows me on Twitter will have picked up I'm very far from impressed with McCully and Coleman shaming the Shore; will swallow hard and pay for a bunch of flowers to Maggie Barry. (It would have been too shaming if my local MP lost her spine.)
Even more squicky, a Tweet from Coleman him indicates he swallowed Winston's tendentious referendum bullshit. For the record, I argued against citizen-initiated referenda when the relevant Act was still a bill. I'm the kind of old fashioned boy who thinks we elect a legislature to... well... you know... legislate between free, fair and credible general elections. If I wanted government by badly designed opinion poll, I'd be planning a coup to install a junta of market researchers.
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Up Front: Card on the Table, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Seriously, Bart, I'd just take the win if DC hired a dozen more straight off-white guys and cis-women on an ongoing basis.
Is it really that hard?
Los Bros Hernandez have been on the scene for thirty fraking years
There are plenty of women doing awesome work in the medium – Aline and Sophie Kominsky-Crumb, Françoise Mouly, Carla Speed McNeil, Ursula Vernon, Alison Bechdel, Hiromu Arakawa, Claire Bretecher, Julie Doucet, and Jessica Abel, are just the ones who immediately come to mind.
None of them are doing impenetrable art-wank unimaginably distant from the air-quote unquote comics “mainstream”. So what the fuck is going on, people -- apart from (yes) SWM continuing to hire and promote people who look like them and getting pissy when that's pointed out?
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Up Front: Card on the Table, in reply to Martin Lindberg,
Ursula Le Guin unticked 'em all forty-five years back. She also tells a rather wonderfully ghastly tale of how got a paperback edition of A Wizard of Earthsea and was surprised to see her hero portrayed as an Aryan wet dream when the guy in the book is none of the above.
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