Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Muse: That Book, The Ban That Isn't,…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Wishart is so reckless and agenda-driven that I wouldn’t be holding out a lot of hope for “insight” from any of his work.
Neither would I, but I think W.H. Auden made a rather astute observation: "Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered." And, to be frank, I have enormous regard for Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins but when they start up on the "religion = psychosis" meme, I find the signal to noise ratio painfully low.
Craig, I was making no allegation, just mentioning a possibility as suggested to me by someone else. Delete it if you want, but that would be ironic, wouldn’t it?
If I wanted something gone it would be gone - never you mind. I just hoped a polite warning would be taken in the spirit in which it was offered. Honestly, if I'm going to risk being sued this ain't the ditch I'm going to die in.
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Muse: That Book, The Ban That Isn't,…, in reply to nzlemming,
Mark:
I'm not comfortable having that allegation (which is all it is) repeated here without porn star hard evidence backing it up.
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Muse: That Book, The Ban That Isn't,…, in reply to Russell Brown,
I’d been steering clear of the Facebook page(s) in question, but this blog post has a sample.
Thanks, Russell. Those quotes (and sadly, I don't think they're outliers) are why I wasn't going to drive traffic to the damn thing with a link.
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Muse: That Book, The Ban That Isn't,…, in reply to Cecelia,
It’s about Wishart in my book.
Well, Celia, you can impute all the bad faith and ethical squalor in the world to Wishart and I’m not going to argue. But, perhaps, this isn’t really about Wishart. The problem with standing up for free speech is that often lands you far too close to unpleasant people.
(And, personally, I’d warn the Herald on Sunday against getting too high on its editorial high horse over Wishart’s ethical probity. That paper has too much form for *cough* not letting facts get in the way of a good story and downright sleaze for that halo to sit comfortably. Helen Clark, Peter Davies and David Parker may also have a few things to say about APN’s two faces when it comes to spreading and enabling Wishart’s muck.)
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Muse: That Book, The Ban That Isn't,…, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Big Brother had a secret agenda. Helen Clark is watching us
If she is, I'm going to have to spend more time walking around the house naked. That should put her off in short order.
Paul Little’s HoS column on the matter is pretty bloody good.
Indeed - and an atypically sensible (if not entirely helpful, tonally) editorial here.
Money quote:
To condemn someone for what we imagine they will say - indeed to seek to stop them saying it - is to take public discourse to a new low. Macsyna King has not, let it be remembered, been charged with a crime.
Those who sneer at the idea that she is still tarred by association with the twins' sickening deaths might care to ask themselves what degree of separation from a crime they would seek before allowing someone's gag to be removed. At this stage, and still unread, King's story is not, of itself, offensive. In a civilised country, public odium is not sufficient reason to deprive someone of human rights, including freedom of speech.
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Muse: That Book, The Ban That Isn't,…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Ironic side-note: Wishart is publishing press releases announcing that “free speech died in new Zealand today” on his blog – but turning off comments to prevent anyone responding ;-0
Heh... Karma's a bitch. :)
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Muse: That Book, The Ban That Isn't,…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Wishart’s conduct in seeking to hawk a version of the “truth” by exploiting the formal truth-seeking process is … typical.
Hey, as I’m getting sick of saying I’m not defending Ian Wishart’s journalistic ethics or morals – that truly would be defending the indefensible. But this is a serious question: Should these same booksellers decline to carry any titles touching on the (open) rape charges against Julian Assange? I think it’s depressingly obvious that the Julian Assange Fan Club is large, wired and not slow to express its displeasure.
Hmmm … not quite the same. Kate McCann hasn’t tried to gazump an inquest into her daughter’s death by releasing her version of events during it.
That’s a fair point, but would it also be fair to say that Kate McCann’s version of the events surrounding her daughter’s disappearance is (shall we say) contested? I’m also not entirely sure how King and Wishart are “gazumping” an ongoing coronial inquiry. The legal issues involved are wayyy above my pay grade, but I'm not sure how Breaking Silence is prejudicial as opposed to being in exceedingly poor taste.
Folks who don’t like the idea of the right to silence and believe Macynsa King must be guilty of something worthy of the Shit Parenting Hall of Infamy, are pointing their ire in the wrong direction.
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Muse: That Book, The Ban That Isn't,…, in reply to Sacha,
And Beu in that story seems primarily concerned about the potential position of booksellers with the matter still before a coronial court.
As others have pointed out, Paper Plus has had no problems selling rankly speculative titles on open cases like this. I also understand Paper Plus and The Warehouse just ignored objections from the public (and staff members) to their selling Paul Henry’s fatuous twatcockery and so they should.
So, yeah, pardon my scepticism about how closely, and consistently, they “listen to their stakeholders”. Or not, as the case may be. As Russell said, if they’d just said “who needs the fucking bother, we can’t afford to have tens of thousands of people boycotting our stores in the middle of a recession” at least that would be clear, and honest.
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Muse: That Book, The Ban That Isn't,…, in reply to Sacha,
And the assumption that retailers are reacting primarily and directly to this Facebook protest group seems a bit dubious.
I've e-mailed The Warehouse and Paper Plus, inviting them to clarify exactly what was the level and nature of "significant" objection that lead to them declining to stock the book. They have declined. So, as long as the claimed 30,000+ strong Boycott The Book group keeps being cited, and it's rather unusual I think you'd grant, I don't think I'm exactly making an unreasonable call.
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Muse: That Book, The Ban That Isn't,…, in reply to Sacha,
Every bookstore does not need to sell every book.
No, but I rather every bookseller 1) avoided outsourcing their moral compass to Facebook and/or 2) actually made their decisions with a grain of intellectual rigour.
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