for Matthew Hooton and Carrick Graham.
– P
You may also be interested in: It’s only ‘propaganda’ if you’re talking about the other side, right, Carrick? and Smoke gets in your eyes, Carrick?
Movie credit: My son.
The escape of exnzpat, Part 17
The First Bait of the Innocent
Wormwood looked much the same as I had left it before I had slept. I was wearing only my shirt and pants. My socks and shoes were still drying on a rock beside the fire. Becky had my jacket. Sometime during our sleep, it had become hers. Gently, I lifted it from her. She rolled away but did not wake. I skipped across to the wall of the cave to where we had piled our firewood and, retrieving an armload returned and dumped it onto the fire as quietly as I could so as not to wake her.
Of Lincoln and Lilith, there was no sight. Continue reading →
Not just a fake Facebook account, but a demeaning, pornographic one.
click to read at Salon.com
Not a new story, but I came across it again … disgusting.
As noted here previously, about the time I was tackling some internet marketing ‘gurus’ (and, I guess, hurting their feelings) several fake blogs were set up using my name and linking to derogatory statements about me.
That was water off a duck’s back, but read this article about someone’s experience of a nasty fake Facebook profile … all Facebook has done is get bigger and bigger, making it a slow giant when it comes to cleaning up stuff like this — and less and less ‘private’.
This author, Susan Arnout Smith, faced a more serious problem. And, bewilderingly for her, for no reason she could identify.
Read on at Salon.com
– P
“You just feel kind of satisfied with your products, and then you die.”
Nice to hear Louis CK saying these things out loud.
– P
Piercing the veil. Why I think Martyn is a bully.
Martyn Bradbury
A couple of years ago, in a post ‘Bradbury: Martyr or moderated troll?‘, I declared this about Martyn Bradbury:
Let me be clear about my own opinion of Martyn: I think he is a sloganeering polemicist. He is also, in my personal opinion, a devious smear artist who hysterically espouses extraordinary anti-democratic ‘positions’, [see On a collision course] and wages ‘war’ on people he regards as ‘enemies’. In my observation he seeks to denigrate and libel his political opposites (of which I am not one) while dressing in left wing, liberal, culturally appropriate ‘clothing’ as if he were a politically-switched on version of comic Te Radar (he wishes!)
Yeah, OK, that’s pretty harsh. Despite occasional flashes of cooperativeness and some good MC performances around the anti-GCSB bill campaign (pic), it seems to me Martyn has become even more shrill and, by appearances, only more bitter in protecting his ‘patch’ since I wrote that.
Last night someone directed me to a post at Martyn’s Daily Blog where he set out to attack a couple of fellow bloggers — in fact, former contributors to his latest left-wing new media project.
At times it seems to me that Martyn aims to out-oil Cameron Slater’s often nasty attack blog. These two, Cameron and Martyn, sadly appear to be two sides of the same dysfunctional coin with their (how many ways can I say ‘petulant and nasty’?) approach, often smearing and/or denigrating people one might have supposed were on their ‘side’. (Yes, the irony is not lost on me.)
Cameron Slater has a tactic (a filthy habit) of trying to reach into people’s real lives as ‘retribution’ for their online opposition to him or his heroes and heroines.
As I have recounted (details in the Bradbury post above), when ‘bested’ or even just challenged in an online discussion/argument/confrontation, Cameron will publish posters’ real names, email addresses, places of employment — their identity, in other words. (Forget any assurance his website may offer about ‘Your email will not be published’.) Cameron threatens to and has formally complained to his cyber-antagonists’ employers (or called out to his ‘army’ of perspiring keyboard warriors to do so) — trying to impose a real world ‘penalty’ for an online disagreement. It is loathsome.
Now it seems Martyn Bradbury is doing the same thing.
Won’t somebody, please … think of the editors?
I’m in the early stages of editing a book. So this made me chuckle …
(I’m not saying I’m better than anybody.)
– P
Via: Jess SilverGreenberg
Apropos the Willie & JT thing, read this excellent* Metro editorial by Simon Wilson
A taste:
… That’s what makes the response of Willie Jackson and John Tamihere so appalling. They can reasonably be called role models for those young men, which meant they had a particular responsibility. Every decent-minded person the Roast Busters might have listened to was duty-bound to say, “What you do and think is wrong.” Good ol’ Willie and JT chose instead to talk about “a bit of mischief” and imply the girls in question might have been complicit in the crimes against them.
The argument that women who wear a short skirt or get drunk are asking for it is medieval: it’s one of the things we like to say is appalling about the Taliban.
Actually, it’s worse, because it suggests men believe there are times when women license them to become barbarians. Why would anyone believe that might be true?
We want boys to understand right and wrong in sexual relations. We also want girls to know they can speak up, say no when they want to and complain when they need to. Jackson and Tamihere didn’t just telegraph their blessing to the Roast Busters; they also reinforced how humiliating and pointless it might be for young women to speak out.
Boys are indulged, girls are doubted. Many women will say it was ever thus.
Read it all: The Best and the Worst of Auckland.
Good on him.
– P
* Where by ‘excellent’, I mean I agree with him.
Now, if Cunliffe had joked that Judith Collins was a ‘troll’ …
Actually, I read this introduction to a David Cunliffe blog post (apparently. I haven’t read it) as jovial, a play on words.
“The original brief was to respond to a post by Judith Collins. My post was going to be about snapper, not trout. But considering that issue, along with Judith’s leadership aspirations, has floundered, I’ll try another hook.”
But, Shock! Horror! Sexist! apparently. (Even though Mrs Collins routinely refers to him in derogatory terms, complete with a boarding school-style nickname.)
Here. Try this (below). Not even Judith “Crusher” Collins’ most sensitive wee petals could deny it.
Surprise! They don’t like each other. Duh. (I’m sure they have their reasons.)
Politicians can be such dorks.
– P
Philosophy and slippery ethics
Reader & commenter here at The Paepae, Ivan the Terrible, asked me last night whether I ‘fancy’ myself as a philosopher. This was in the context of my post Settlement of legal action as a ‘peace premium’ about the wisdom/risk management of settling a dispute, where possible, rather than pursuing it through the courts.
I started an answer to him but then it branched … so here it is as a blog post. (Don’t read it if you have no appetite for my occasional self-reflective meandering.)
Philosopher? Who, me? Not really.
I remember getting a great big hardback Bertrand Russell book out of my college library … which impressed my dad … but at 15, I couldn’t really make sense of it.
Later, through friends, I was led to think deeply about about ethics — the same friends introduced me to people in a cult, the Children of God, who had apparently surrendered many of their life decisions to someone else, but whose ambiguous sexual morality made them … attractive. (Perfectly understandable, when I look back. Recruiting.)
My emerging sense of what I called then ‘social justice’ — but could just as easily be described as a simple awareness of power imbalances, fairness, and empathy, rather than any political or philosophical bent — plus an event which was in effect a fork in the road (the consequences of a poor choice on my part that let me glimpse a future I did not want) led me to take care about my own morality and how I treated myself and others. I saw actions had and have consequences.
Like most teenagers, I was acutely sensitive to the nexus of consistency vs hypocrisy … and, typically, judgmental of it in others. I became quite black-and-white and, as I have noted before, vastly intolerant of people expecting others to ‘lead’ them and make the hard decisions in their lives e.g. religious ‘shepherding’ and discipleship.
I am clumsy at times, even today, and can sometimes be harsh when exasperated or annoyed. I do my best but I fail, sometimes, to live up to my own standards. C’est la vie. See also Desiderata, which I cited here: Stress kills. Some more thoughts about litigation. Especially “As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.” Note the qualifiers.
You’re an activist? That shows that you care about something
Returning briefly to the subject of ‘What sort of people are involved in politics?’ (Remember, hate-blogger Cameron Slater thinks they’re dirty, disgusting, despicable people playing a dirty, disgusting, despicable game) I saw this in my Twitter timeline recently:
Yeah, I can see where Glenn Greenwald is coming from, if a little defensively. It’s so easy to sling off at somebody (‘You’re not a ‘real’ journalist, you’re an activist’, was the dismissive implication in Greenwald’s recent ‘dialogue’ with the NY Times‘ Bill Keller — full article here) but that’s not how I see activists.
It is unquestionably true that people in ‘the power elite’, elected officials/office holders/bureaucrats etc and their enablers in the media routinely disparage ‘activists’ as zealots, enthusiastic amateurs or single-issue nutters, and whatever else they can think of. Same with whistle-blowers.
Indeed, it’s normal for those in a bureaucracy to dismiss, sanction or otherwise attempt to stifle or discredit the outspoken — those whom they characterize as oddballs or whistle-blowers — or far too ‘committed’.
Conformity is by definition a narrowed path, and often passionless.
In most organisations (public or private sector) sticking to ‘procedure’ is encouraged and rewarded. Toeing the company line is de riguer, obligatory. Even if, as we have discussed, sometimes it means doing the ‘wrong’ thing the ‘right way’. That’s seen as defensible.
The courage to speak up
I have always seen people who give a damn (whatever their issue) as worth something … and their voices worthy of being heard — whether I necessarily agree with them or not.
What’s referred to so readily — free speech or freedom of expression — is a two-sided coin if ever there was one.
Freedom of speech is not the same a freedom from the consequences of one’s statements of expression. I’ve copped it for being outspoken at times, and while I’m not an overtly religious person, this speaks to me:
A man dies and comes before God.
God: “Where are your scars?”
“I have none.”
“Why? Was there nothing worth fighting for?”
— David Wolpe
It’s also the law of the land that some expressions, or disclosures of information are ‘protected disclosures’ which makes it a criminal offence to persecute informants. (I’ve had reason to look at this recently. See my post ‘The challenge of dealing with a whistle-blower‘ which also, coincidentally cites Greenwald.) I don’t think it covers radio talkback hosts.
Willie and JT
I am, naturally, a long way short of justifying the [corrupt] Putin-regime’s brutal persecution of band members of Pussy Riot for daring to criticise him … but I’m actually OK with the way local Radio LIVE recently removed Willie Jackson and John Tamihere from their afternoon radio slot — even though as I have said, Willie & JT’s political panel was one of the best things on that station (in my opinion).
The action of Radio LIVE’s management to sanction the two radio hosts followed fiery public debate about rape apologetics/rape culture (at its worst, characterised by offensive ‘She was asking for it’-type justification and victim-blaming). The opprobrium directed at these two ‘personalities’ and community leaders, sparked by their treatment of a young woman talkback caller, was fierce. Fair enough.
Settlement of legal action as a ‘peace premium’
I was fascinated by the language New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman used yesterday to describe a settlement agreement between multiple US government agencies and JP Morgan Chase bank over its actions in the Global Financial Crisis, reported as:
NEW YORK (TheStreet) — New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on Tuesday announced a groundbreaking $13 billion mortgage settlement between JPMorgan Chase (JPM_) and multiple government authorities.
“Today’s settlement is a significant, but by no means final step, by the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Office of the Inspector General, the Department of Justice and the New York Attorney General’s Office and our other law enforcement partners, to hold accountable those who commit acts of fraud and deceit,” Schneiderman said in a press release.
Schneiderman, who heads President Obama’s Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group, said JPMorgan’s settlement will include $4 billion in assistance to distressed homeowners and $9 billion in cash payments. He also said that the deal will cover all civil claims by government authorities related to residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) sales by JPMorgan, Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual before 2009.
Schneiderman said $2 billion of the overall settlement will not be tax deductible, but that early on regulators had agreed to treat Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual liabilities as deductible.
JPMorgan acquired Bear Stearns when the investment bank was faced with bankruptcy amid a liquidity crisis in March 2008. Washington Mutual was shuttered by regulators in September 2008, after which it was sold to JPMorgan by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
A major sticking point between JPMorgan and the Justice department was the language under which the company would be expected to admit some fault in its mortgage securitization and sales activities.
“JPMorgan acknowledged it made serious, material misrepresentations to the public — including the investing public — about numerous RMBS transactions,” Schneiderman said on Tuesday.
All very intriguing, and one can just imagine how strenuously JP Morgan would have worked to try to evade any admission of guilt, fault or liability (for its ‘acts of fraud and deceit’). That’s an unfortunate aspect of human nature I’ve observed recently — someone wriggling to try to avoid acknowledging their own dead-obvious guilt.
Lily Allen – genius
I remember referring to a dodgy bit of ‘research’ (cough) sponsored by a beer company(!) which purported to a ‘finding’ that Lily Allen was a ‘negative twitterer’… which made me laugh, a lot, and was, I suspect, more a case of them not getting the edge, the sarcasm and the real-world social analysis which this intelligent observer (Ms Allen) shares with her audience. She fingers double standards in a way that is undeniable.
Here’s her latest (warning: some racy content, explicit language — e.g. ‘Forget your balls and grow some tits’ — and references to Robin Thicke’s misogyny):
Just fabulous.
– P
via popjustice.com and @CaitlinMoran
Watch this MacBook’s fate and try not to wince
– P
via tastefullyoffensive.com. Thanks to AK.
Spotted in the thinking room of a friend’s house …
Gulp.*
– P
* particularly the bit about piles of paper/stuff on the floor.
