Posts by Craig Ranapia
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In other news, Herald media columnist (and Russell's BFF) John Drinnan unearths Public Address' role in the downfall of civilization:
LANGUAGE, LANGUAGE
A sign of the times. In the online world the trendy folk of Public Address voted recently for a sexual insult "twatcock" as its word of the year.
Being lectured on good taste by a rag noted for its balls-deep vulgarity, illiteracy and a tendency to treat facts with the fastidious disdain a kosher butcher would show towards a Christmas ham, makes me want to proffer this cheery New Years wish:
[Redacted on the grounds of gross defamation of Shetland ponies, the men who love them too much & a range of drug-resistant venereal infections.]
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Sacha,
Don't know about anyone else, but I'd love to see Keith or one of PAS's resident polling/stats nerds doing a critical look at this Horizon outfit. There's something that niggles me about their methodology, but can't quite put my finger on it.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
So he'd be totally cool and just as hands-off if members of Congress espoused, ooooh, neo-Nazi views, right? Because that's just another kind of "belief and idea"?
To be perfectly cynical, I think Boehner is perfectly happy with shit-bats like Michaelle Bachmann serving Kool-Aid to the base (and opening their wallets) as long as he has plausible deniability and electoral distance. I think he's going to find that may work in the short term, but the mid- to long-rage damage to the GOP is going to be nasty. It's not just the Democrats the Tea Baggers have in their sights, so to speak, but any moderate reality-based Republican who dares to open their mouth. Now, the likes of Ted Olson and Senators Snowe and Collins can flick them off without much effort. There's a lot of other people who can't -- or won't -- fight off this rabid pack of poop-flinging howler monkeys every damn day.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to giovanni tiso,
I'm shocked by the disbelief expressed in official reactions in the States. Surely this was the very definition of the phrase "only a matter of time".
Also not helped when it appears the newly elected Speaker of the House is a feckless jellyfish:
Williams: I'm curious as to how much responsibility you feel specifically because of something that happened this morning. During the reading of the Constitution, Congressman Frank Pallone of New Jersey, was reading a portion of the document, interrupted by someone who heckled from within the chamber. It was to express doubt over the president's American citizenship. Provided you believe the president is an American citizen, you've got 12 members co-sponsoring legislation that does about the same thing, it expresses doubt. Would you be willing to say, "This is a distraction, I've looked at it to my satisfaction. Let's move on"?
Boehner: The state of Hawaii has said that President Obama was born there. That's good enough for me.
Williams: Would you be willing to say that message to the 12 members in your caucus who seem to either believe otherwise or are willing to express doubt and have co-sponsored legislation?
Boehner: Brian, when you come to the Congress of the United States, there are 435 of us. We're nothing more than a slice of America. People come, regardless of party labels, they come with all kinds of beliefs and ideas. Uh it's, it's the melting pot of America. It's not up to me to tell them what to think. [Emphasis added]
Anyone who's read Robert Caro's Master of the Senate (the third volume of his biography of Lyndon Johnson) should have a solid basis to call bullshit on Boehner. LBJ may have been a 110-proof son of a bitch in many ways, but his role as Senate Majority leader in the passage of the 1967 Civil Rights Act is awe-inspiring.
Meanwhile, if Boehner (and the rest of the GOP's congressional leadership) can't -- or won't -- exercise any control over the Tea Baggers, I can only hope their reap the bitter harvest of what they sow.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 1: Beach…, in reply to Sacha,
Speaking of beaches, the Herald's John Roughan strikes a pose in defense of the budgie smuggler. Here's why he reckons they went out of fashion:
I have exclusive footage of Mr. Roughan's fashion sense:
If anything, the popularity of the board short was a textbook example of how subcultures feed into -- and eventually become -- mainstream style. And far from being capitulation to eco-feminazi "political correctness", I won't be seen in public in a lycra cock-sock because it's hideously embarrasing and uncomfortable to look like an over-filled mini-muffin cup. Roughan might be beyond caring about looking ridiculous, but I'm not.
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BTW, the full text of the editorial in the British Journal of Medicine is here -- co-signed by editor-in-chief Fiona Godlee, deputy editor Jane Smith and associate editor Harvey Marcovitch.
By the standards of the BMJ, it's Glenn Beck on a crying jag stuff.
ETA: And in the pages of the same journal, here's an actual investigative journalist committing journalism in a public place as opposed to the half-baked disease porn we usually get.
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And throwing some Russell-bait into the mix: Andrew Wakefield defends discredited autism-vaccine link study described as an "elaborate fraud" by the British Medical Journal.
I will, of course, not hold my breath waiting for full retractions and apologies from every media outlet in New Zealand that didn't do due diligence -- or basic journalistic quality control -- on Wakefield's study before trying to scare the shit out of their readers/viewers.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
Which said, the getting rid of it is still of dubious use - you lose half of what the book can teach you - but it's not censorship, either; it's a stupid editing decision. Censorship implies a governmental/official action which isn't present here. It's one edition. There'll be plenty of unchanged ones available.
Nope, Lucy, "censorship" implies no such thing. What really started my irony gland twitching is that "stupid editorial decision" came from a publisher that describes itself as follows:
Williams and La Rosa view their publishing program as mission-based. In an article about NewSouth which appeared in January 2008, the Louisville Courier-Journal observes that NewSouth is a risk-taking, socially conscious publisher. “We gravitate to material which enhances our undertanding of who we are and which asks us to stretch in our understanding of others,” says La Rosa. “Our publishing program is defined by its strong cultural component.” Williams adds that the house’s titles are not exclusively Southern, but that its program specializes in books on Southern history and culture, “especially those which examine the role of individuals in creating or contending with the change and conflict which came to the region in the post-World War II era. We believe strongly in the transformative power of information and knowledge, and we hope that the books we publish offer collective insight that helps the region grow toward ‘the beloved community’ and the fulfillment of the democratic promise.”
Well, I don't know if Suzanne La Rosa has been paying attention for the last couple of centuries, but the toxic legacy of slavery and profound racism -- which Twain laid bare with a brutally frank eye -- is a major part of Southern history and culture. The transformative power of information and knowledge is having the courage to look hard and ugly truths in the eye; to use art and literature as a tool for developing the empathy and moral intelligence to understand experience different from your own -- which may make your stomach churn and your blood boil.
Yes, "nigger" is a damn ugly word but it wasn't one Twain used for Eminem-style shock value. And it is intellectually and culturally irresponsible to sanitise the past because (to be utterly cynical) it might help your sales in the textbook market.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 1: Beach…, in reply to BenWilson,
Does anyone else actually clean their rubbish before binning it? I've made a habit of it, to keep smells down.
The recycling definitely -- if you wouldn't handle something with food waste that's had days in a sweltering warehouse to get rancid, why the frig should you expect anyone else to? Takes ten seconds tops to rinse out a can last thing when you're doing the washing up. Not that hard. Also, folks three doors down with a large garden will take our compostibles.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Matthew Poole,
Given that they talked of "injuries", I'm not surprised the Herald kept on with the "suspicious" line.
Well, I'm not complaining about the Police doing their job -- they have pretty strict rules around how they treat cases like this, and have them for a reason. What doesn't surprise me about too much of the media coverage is that they went with the sensational lead, and buried the far from trivial context when it was reported at all. Sure, I expect the Herald the TV news to be tacky and tone death but it's not a member of my family or a close friend who got the death porn treatment.
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