Up Front: The Up Front Guides: How to Be an Opinion Columnist
50 Responses
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
That's great stuff. An argument against gay marriage on the premise that if we continue to stop gays marrying, they're more likely to marry women and produce children.
Depressingly, it's a fairly standard do down the fags line of argument. I don't know what's worse about that line: the middle finger extended towards reality, or the intellectual dishonesty of this:
1) 'Normal' marriage is great because it is sooths the savage animal penis brains -- which is a state of being that is good for individuals and families and society at large.
2) Homos are degenerate animal penis brains who'd shag anything, anywhere any time.
3) Which is precisely why homos shouldn't be allowed to marry. (So much for the social utility defence of marriage. Wouldn't you be encouraging cock-loving sex maniacs to enter into formal, socially-sanctioned pair bonds if you really believed 1)?)
If you can make sense of that, I'd like you to take a look at my student loan statement. IN the meantime, if Christopher Pearson doesn't take his own argument seriously I don't see why I should bother.
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richard, in reply to
Better yet: become a graduate science student. Undergraduates volunteer for minionship. If you play it right, you will never wash another dish.
(Okay, you will, but it will be many fewer dishes than you would have washed without minions.)
I once got a post-doc to help move a sofa. Does that count?
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Xeno, in reply to
Toilet paper is too good a use for that section of the paper apparently.
I wouldn't soil my backside with it.
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JoJo, in reply to
Crikey, Craig. There are so many 'urges' in paragraph three (and throughout the whole article) that it's almost satirical.
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I don't think we should down-play, either, how horrible that column is about straight men.
Men and women tend to have different needs and priorities when they enter a mature sexual relationship.
Most men are not naturally disposed to be monogamous, for example. One of the purposes of marriage is to bind them to their spouses and children for the long haul and to give the state's approval to those who enter such a contract and abide by its terms.
See, if straight men aren't bound to their spouses and children, they'll just fuck off. Whereas if we allow gay men to be bound to their partners... something something. I'm not sure I can make any sense of that.
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Do op-ed columnists dream of being allowed on a Government Working Group? They might as well be.
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More importantly, collective nouns can't sue for defamation.
They can't take collective action? Oh, duh, yes, true, then they would be verbs.
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Danielle, in reply to
Do op-ed columnists dream of being allowed on a Government Working Group? They might as well be.
Hmmm. How much rage can I sustain over Facebook, Twitter, email *and* PAS at once? Lessee...
[pause for tallying]
.... it appears to be a practically infinite amount.
GRAR!
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Whereas if we allow gay men to be bound to their partners... something something.
Perhaps that was where the idea of imprisoning gays for being gay came from.
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Hmmm. How much rage can I sustain over Facebook, Twitter, email *and* PAS at once? Lessee...
You could always focus your rage and turn it into a submission. You have time until December 24th.
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Danielle, in reply to
Fear not, I will. (I'm sure that they're deeply interested in what Enraged Mother of One, Glen Eden, has to say.)
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You could always focus your rage and turn it into a submission. You have time until December 24th.
Good advice in many situations; but in this case I do wonder if rational action is pointless. These are the people still spouting:
“If changes were not made, the 356,000 working-age adults on a benefit would eventually cost the country $50 billion.”
which is not just inaccurate, not just speculative, not just misleading, but the WWG must know, an actual lie: it assumes every person receiving a benefit will do so for the rest of their life, which is almost never the case.
More from Gordon Campbell in that same article:
"The reality is far less dramatic. Elsewhere within the working paper, the level of those reliant on welfare is predicted to rise from 13% now to 16% in 2050. That’s only a three per cent rise spread over 40 years, in the context of an ageing population that will inevitably generate more people on sickness and invalids benefits. So, where’s the crisis? In that sense, there isn’t one. ‘Crisis’ is a word that I would reserve for the health system, under Tony Ryall. A ruckus over welfare is merely a political diversion from the debacle unfolding in health.
If we truly want to get people off welfare and into jobs, here’s a revolutionary notion – let’s create some jobs ! At present, as Sue Bradford has pointed out, there are 255,000 people in this country who are wanting work, but who currently can’t find it. We don’t have a welfare crisis, we have a jobs crisis. Why on earth would the working party – or the government – think that it is a good and timely priority to add to the numbers already seeking work, by pushing more people out to look for non-existent jobs?"
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Sue,
i wonder tho, do the squeaky wheel Columnist make all of them look bad? A bit like one bad cyclist/pedestrian/driver makes them all look bad?
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Sacha, in reply to
These are the people still spouting:
“If changes were not made, the 356,000 working-age adults on a benefit would eventually cost the country $50 billion.”Where 'people' means supposedly-trained journalists. What's going to stop these pricks passing on the lies?
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You can download the report and previous submissions at the WWG's lair. I imagine someone may start a new thread here for the topic.
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Lilith __, in reply to
I imagine someone may start a new thread here for the topic
Yeah, sorry Emma, didn’t mean to threadjack, just can’t believe that social policy might be written in that same punitive factless rage….
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Hi folks. Too busy preparing the TV show to write anything sensible, but I've made you a Welfare Working Group discussion thread:
http://publicaddress.net/hardnews/what-about-that-welfare-working-group-then/
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"I feel I should just make it absolutely clear that this column is not intended to be a reflection on anyone I work with or for. Or around. Or "work with". Or even drink with."
I see, the remainder of the human population of this planet are opinion columnists?
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I see, the remainder of the human population of this planet are opinion columnists?
Yes, Peter. That's exactly what I meant. Or possibly you're under- (or over-) estimating the proportion of the population I've drunk with.
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Megan Wegan, in reply to
Or possibly you’re under- (or over-) estimating the proportion of the population I’ve drunk with.
I was going to do some creative editing on that sentence...basically replacing one word, but that was your last column...
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I'm beginning to think the only sensible solution is to campaign for enforced same sex marriages. Every man, woman and child (we need to get them before they can form their own opinions) would be required to have at least one same sex husband/wife. Of course we probably could allow people to have opposite sex partners as well, perhaps using some sort of civil union.
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Andre Alessi, in reply to
As long as you refer to them as "bros" instead of "partners", you'll get 95% of the male population behind the idea.
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Every man, woman and child (we need to get them before they can form their own opinions) would be required to have at least one same sex husband/wife.
You know, I could seriously do with another mother/wife in this house right now.
I was going to do some creative editing on that sentence...basically replacing one word, but that was your last column...
Oh honey, remember what happened the last time we counted?
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Megan Wegan, in reply to
Oh honey, remember what happened the last time we counted?
We ran out of fingers and toes?
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
Oh honey, remember what happened the last time we counted?
You had to go out and improve your score?
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