Author Archive
Egregious
When I gently pointed to what some might call errors in this notice I was assured the threat of being shot on the premises was what was intended. Really. – P
Declaring where you’re coming from
Like most people (I think), I find it interesting, at times fascinating, to speculate about WHY people do and say what they do … WHY they might express views that they hold in the way they do … and WHY they enter into discussions or debates (and sometimes flame wars) on the internet. But I’ve […]
Depression is real stuff
From an excellent profile of the awesomely good Rachel Maddow ‘Rachel Maddow’s Quiet War’ in the June Rolling Stone magazine: “Yesterday was like a four-star show, I was totally into it,” she says. “Today and Monday – like, blaagh. Like, doesn’t get any worse. I’ve been doing this for four years! Why do I still […]
Spy fiction? Kinda fits.
Barrister Carl Gardner, writing at Head of Legal blog: Julian Assange: Can he get out of this? … All in all, I think the [UK] Supreme Court made quite a hash of the Assange case. I’m not the only critic, either – Tiina Pajuste at the CJICL Blog argues that they were wrong to bring […]
Upstaging an important public moment
I spotted this statement from Susan Benn on behalf of the Julian Assange Defence Fund over the weekend, which makes some good points about the challenge the Swedish and British authorities (surely) must be having trying to maintain the pretense that they’re treating Julian Assange as they would any other ‘person of interest’. The ludicrous […]
The curse of hypervigilance
Recent angst-ridden discussion about comments published on the internet have reminded me of a conclusion I reached when I was myself the subject of scurrilous anonymous comment: It can bloody hurt. But some of the pain is, sadly, self-inflicted. We’ve seen again and again how anonymity seems to loosen people’s grip on civility. Some of […]
Taking the pfiss out of John Key
Wow. The honeymoon is well-and-truly over: Here’s open comment that the NZ Prime Minister is routinely observed “fibbing, hiding something or not totally convinced by [his] own argument”. ‘How are the mighty fallen!’1 This is just as devastating, in a different way, as what a former NZ Herald editor said in John Key’s media whack-a-mole […]
Speaking up for Madeleine Flannagan
The following is an anonymous comment in support of Madeleine Flannagan, who features in my recent post, ‘Implications of recent internet gagging attempt‘. UPDATE: The comment is now in the comment stream of the relevant post.
Cat 1 – Blow-up giraffe 0
I came out to the lounge this morning and … – P see also: I think my cat must read my blog
Some useful cyber citizen guidelines
It’s funny how even from people’s intended blows you can learn something valuable. A couple of years ago when I was blogging about the dubious operations of a gaggle of ‘internet marketing experts’ (cough) somebody, by a remarkable coincidence, set up a number of blogs linking my name to keywords like ‘scam’ and ‘ripoff’ (see […]
When friends try to ‘help’
I was at a book launch with my pal and fellow publisher Roger on Sunday afternoon at the excellent Women’s Bookshop in Ponsonby, and saw this saying in a book of reflections on quotations by Elizabeth Smither. 1 It’s a sentiment which I have expressed many times over the years, usually in bewildered exasperation — […]
Guest post: Andrew King responds to Dean Letfus feature
You may recall my post The trajectory of property spruiker Dean Letfus which was the blog equivalent of a sharp intake of breath at the positioning of Dean Letfus‘s smiling face on the cover of the NZ Property Investor magazine. I wasn’t the only one surprised at that placement, or the soft ride he was […]
Trust us …
No further comment necessary. – P
McDonalds putting their best foot forward?
I like this behind-the-scenes approach to marketing. Good on them. But I’ll never forget the author of The E-Myth Michael Gerber’s description of McDonalds food as “an acceptable level of mediocrity”. via Mashable
Implications of recent internet gagging attempt
UPDATE June 2013 — There have been developments on this. See this post: Is this what we want? Internet ‘take down’ and indefinite gagging orders? The decision in a recent court case involving allegations of harassment by blog post is instructive on all sorts of levels for what it tell us about the state of […]
