I spotted this promo for Metro magazine near my office in Epsom today and thought, Yeah, they’ve done that well …
The question form (factoid-factoid-blah-blah. Why is that?’) seems like old-school Ogilvy-Mather stuff. But … it seems effective to me. It engages.
What do you think?
– P
For those of you who are ‘over’ the recent controversy about internet take-down orders and indefinite gagging of a blogger, you might want to skip this post. If you’re one of the parties involved, or close to them, please don’t put yourself in harm’s way or at risk of distress by reading on …
2003 Slate magazine cartoon of the real Scalia — US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
I wasn’t really aware of a toxic and dishonest internet sock-puppet who calls him/her/itself ‘Scalia’ until it published false statements about how things work here at The Paepae as if it had some inside knowledge.
As is my practice, I corrected the false information posted in a follow-up posting, but ‘Scalia’ just repeated the false statements.
I’ll explain why that interchange is noteworthy in a minute but, for reference, here’s what went down:
In the context of discussion about some of the implications of the recent court judgement I highlighted in this post Is this what we want? Internet ‘take down’ and indefinite gagging orders?, another blogger Lucia Maria at NZConservative, having read my summary, and (by the sounds of it) feeling queasy, got a copy of the full judgement and read it…
Thanks, I’m reading it now.
I didn’t think it would be possible to be even more disturbed, but this judgement looks like it has effectively killed free speech in NZ.
It’s also very cursory in it’s treatment of the bank statement. The “how” of procurement is not considered important enough to be investigated – the only standard is the amount of distress that it caused and it’s link with a pattern of behaviour.
I’m quite horrified with what I’m reading, especially the bits about lawyers being a kind of protected species. Who knew? All those people making jokes about lawyers might need to be more careful in the future.
To which I said: Continue reading →
I’m happy to see this morning at home today (above). My thoughts are with some friends not as lucky.
I spent yesterday travelling in Waikato and navigating two very different sets of ‘visiting hours’: Waikeria Prison and Waikato Hospital.
Two good souls presently being acquainted with confinement and pain.
I wish them and their loved ones well — and count my blessings.
Like today.
-P
28th June 1963: President John F Kennedy of the USA is almost lost among a crowd of well-wishers during his visit to Cork in Ireland. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)
One of my regular pleasures is a BBC podcast called Witness. I recommend it. Details here.
This morning I listened to the episode ‘JFK in Ireland’. And, as often happens, a passage of his words jumped out at me:
When my great-grandfather left here to become a cooper in East Boston, he carried nothing with him except two things: a strong religious faith and a strong desire for liberty. And I’m glad to say that all of his great-grandchildren have valued that inheritance.
— John F Kennedy speaking at New Ross, Ireland June 1963
Listen to the 9 minute programme below — or here via the BBC Link to MP3 (5MB)
Apart from all the good-to-be-home bonhomie, John Kennedy also had something very deliberate to say to the Irish about their preponderance for censorship, relating it superficially to James Joyce, but addressing an issue that could be said to be linked, somehow, to Irish Catholic heritage.
Here’s Facebook …
Why would anyone not use AdBlock?
– P
Via my (very beautiful) niece* …
Roald Dahl on thoughts
Twee, but true.
– P
* This has kicked around in my wife’s family (therefore my kids’ grandparents) for ages. Good advice.
from The Twits
Infinity
Upon the Island, the Lady before the forest called out to the red, crab-like Beast and his ilk that encircled the souls of the dead, “We have a balance! Purple is no more.”
“We have a balance,” repeated the Beast. And the cry was repeated in turn by each of the colored beasts that corralled the writhing, twisting wraith’s of the dead. And as each cry came each beast looked in fear to that curled form of Lincoln snoring quietly away, fast asleep, at the Lady’s feet.
And how do I know this? Adam Kadmon showed it to me… Continue reading →
Some people have expressed concern about how I use language on this blog. This, from Ivan, recently, got me thinking ….
I find your posts to often be … sinuous, reptilian, complex and sometimes (seemingly) self-backslapping in nature and like a property developer’s version of an unsolvable rubiks cube. People are scared to admit they don’t understand your writings for fear of appearing gauche and unintelligent …
My first thought was: Well! There’s a review for the scrapbook … or to print out and put over the mantlepiece.
Then I recalled that I’d recently also been characterised [by others] as a devious and clever ‘spinmeister’ devilishly using a multi-layered approach to … words … for malign effect.
Apparently, I’m seen by some as sooo insincere in my ‘work’ here that I twist and distort ‘the truth’ using carefully coded messages embedded in my prose to create false impressions, defend the indefensible and generally … be … mean.
They don’t actually say this next bit, but they seem to imply that I set out to stir up ‘base’ emotions: outrage, passion, anger, fear, suspicion, ridicule (oops, not an emotion) — all aimed to create havoc and heartache for good people.
Nobody really knows why I’m such a loathsome toe-rag. Or why I do it — for kicks? Because I’m ‘intimately invested’? Just plain irascibility? Or is it some idiotic naivety?
Well, as my 16 year old daughter says, ‘Cool story bro.’
If I had to offer a theory, I’d blame truth and honest opinion. (But self-backslapping runs a close second.)
– P
PS: This image is the icon for Blogsy — a clever multi-platform blogging editor I use on my iPad. (Read the message on the keys, then the fine print on the piece of paper and do what it says.)
‘Trust me. I know what I’m doing.”
It’s sometimes possible to ‘get a sense’ of an author by what they write. (Not always.)
I’ve talked about the work of Judge David Harvey, New Zealand’s ‘internet judge’ quite a bit here on The Paepae. (See these posts.) I admire him.
Because my interests in media/internet/publishing intersect with the sort of cases he handles, I’ve read of few of his judgements. I think one of the first was his September 2010 Decision that convicted blogger Cameron Slater on multiple counts of breaching name suppression orders through ‘coded messages’ on his Whale Oil hate blog1. (Good work.)
I sometimes read Judge Harvey’s blog The IT Countrey Justice — it can go waaaay over my head, I admit, at times, but I read it now and then. (I don’t think I’m quite his target audience).
One judgement Judge Harvey highlighted on his blog recently was P Courtney J’s decision Wishart v Murray — a ruling which has implications for anyone running an online discussion forum or Facebook page (or blog!) that routinely small-P publishes other people’s comments which could be perceived as defamatory. That’s relevant to discussion we’ve had here recently. Obviously.
This isn’t the time or place to go into that case in detail (read about it at Judge Harvey’s blog – Facebook Friends: 3rd Party Comments and Publication for Defamation), but superficially (insert my ‘I am not a lawyer’ disclaimer here) …
The defendants set up a Facebook page and Twitter account apparently specifically designed to disparage and encourage a boycott of Ian Wishart’s book about Macsyna King (mother of the Kahui twins).
A number of extremely negative statements (like, really bad) were [allegedly] made about Ms King and Mr Wishart by the defendants through those platforms, as well as during interviews on RadioLIVE, as promotion for their boycott campaign.
In addition to the statements the defendants themselves made on RadioLIVE, Twitter and the Facebook page, third-party Facebook commenters, many of them anonymous (sigh), got feral, and [allegedly] ‘defamed’ the plaintiffs some more. Ian Wishart and his supporters climbed in to defend him from the allegations on Facebook. That inflamed debate even more — and the administrators/defendants responded by apparently BLOCKING Wishart and some of his supporters (!!) from the Facebook page. (I know, right?)
Note: Judge Courtney’s decision (there’s a link to it on Harvey’s blog) was on an application to ‘strike out’ Wishart’s statement of claim, NOT the actual defamation proceedings. Defamation actions are typically very expensive, long-winded affairs with much legal argy-bargy. This was just a preliminary skirmish.
It seems to me a key component in the dispute behind the defamation case — in addition to the defendants’ own statements — was that action, blocking them from the Facebook page, which appeared to stifle open public debate. The judgement quotes one of the defendants explaining his reasoning:
…the purpose of doing this was not to prevent Mr Wishart from telling his side of the story. His comments, and those of some of his supporters generated a significant number of responses, including some abusive and inappropriate comments. Once it became apparent to me that this occurred I blocked Mr Wishart and a small number of his vocal supporters as a way to discourage misuse of the page. To keep the debate as balanced as possible I posted links to pages setting out Mr Wishart’s version of events …
Well, that didn’t work out too well, did it?
Continue reading →
If my responses to your comments and emails are a little slower than usual, here’s why:
That slender cable is my (and my neighbours down the street from that point) connection to the outside world (phone/internet). It’s been like that since the 8th of June:
8/6/13 10:57 am
From Telecom Support: Your Land Line issue has been resolved for xxxxxxxx. If you still experience issues please call 125 using case # xxxxx. If a temporary divert was set up, dial 160 on your landline then hang up to cancel and avoid additional charges.
Funnily enough even though both my phone lines were disconnected for a few days, the broadband didn’t fail. (Whew!)
Right now, my phones and all my uncapped-bandwidth-unlimited-uplink-downlink-speed goodness is travelling through that lil’ multi-pair cable. (Apparently a 100-pair cable failed underground and it’s troublesome to fix it. Dunno.)
It’s a miracle. One for which I’m very grateful.
– P
One of the cool things about having plenty of memory in your iPhone (and why I got a 32GB one) is you can put heaps of music on it (as well as my podcasts etc).
Then, as happened today, occasionally the shuffle in my Nike+ Running app tosses up a song I haven’t heard for ages.
As some readers will be aware, I’ve been copping a bit of opprobrium from some anonymous/pseudonymous keyboard warriors. (Leave that discussion for another time.)
So … out for my walk today I had to laugh out loud when this great song from The Ting Tings kicked off in my ears …
Hahaha.
– P
I was with my wife (She was driving, officer. It’s her car!) on our recent trip to Wellington when we popped around a corner in Newtown and followed the car in front of us … right into, apparently, a Bus Lane.
We spotted a bloke in a hi-visibility jacket (I think that’s the whole point of those) and saw he was taking pictures … of the two or three cars ahead of us AND OUR CAR. (Groan.)
That happened to me in Newmarket once, again by accident (I swear!) during the height of the controversial bus-lane-revenue-raising by the Auckland City Council where ‘Zere is no excuse. Ve will accept no complaintz!’ was the posture adopted.
Fine: $150, thank you very much.
So, it was a nice surprise to see the far more humane (and educational) approach taken in Wellington:
Good on them. Sensible.
– P
image:laplandwedding.co.uk (click)
Here’s NZConservative blogger Lucia Maria, replying to [public] correspondence with the successful applicant in the recent internet take-down and gagging order case I referred to in Is this what we want? Internet ‘take down’ and indefinite gagging orders? and
Steven Price: ‘wider factors to consider’ in recent online gagging order.
As I do (and others do), Lucia Maria says she feels uneasy about aspects of Judge Harvey’s decision and its implications. (I said: “I find the whole thing chilling and unsettling.”)
Her comments below, in the comment stream of her blog post yesterday Private messages regarding recent online harassment case also reflect the very real sense of tension (‘Should I speak up, in the face of predictable, aggressive criticism for so doing?’) that led me to quote Pastor Martin Niemöller’s poem, “First they came for the …”
Hey Madeleine,
The thing is, I’m looking at this from a blogger’s perspective and how dangerous for me personally it might be to disagree with you about anything that you take offense to. That tempers everything. Every interaction will now be through the lens of personal safety, now that I can see how easy it could be for someone to be legally targeted because what they’ve posted could be seen to have caused a reasonable person personal distress. That’s also making it very difficult for me to actually do what I wanted to do, which is to expand upon my first post on this topic on the topic of free speech.
As a blogger, that’s a big deal to me. My free speech is now being affected because I have to think to myself – is it worth it to say anything? When I wrote my first post [here – ed.] I wondered how much trouble I would get into for it, as trivial as it was and as little as I actually did say, and then I thought – that’s cowardly, and so I went ahead after thinking about it for a day or so, because to not do so would be to ignore something really big that’s happened here in NZ that matters, that needs to be talked about in detail.
And then I get the “intervention” of private comments seeking to guilt me into removing the post (making all sorts of moral judgements and using inflammatory and patronising language as if I’m an idiot or evil) and this post as well, which at least is public due to me having to drive you guys out into the open.
Sir Robert Muldoon. My mum loved him like a hero. No kidding. (Pic: Imagebank)
I remember an interchange I had with Sir Robert Muldoon back when I was a young Press Gallery reporter and he resembled an aged warrior chief — still with teeth, and claws and MIND more than sharp enough to puncture those he wanted to, don’t-you-worry-about-that.
It’s here, in comments on my post ‘Banks: Doing the basics very well‘:
Muldoon, even in semi-retirement, had an aura that was almost palpable. The few times I interviewed him (as an older lion) he had a chilling effect on me. Honestly. The guy had something.
He was very straight with me, though. ‘I’m always on the record,’ he said to me when I asked if we could talk off the record pre-interview.
I greatly respected that ‘I’m always On the Record’ stance. I still do.
It can be personally disempowering to agree to keep secrets. In the New Age personal development world (EST etc) there’s a communication concept (probably ripped off from the Church of Scientology) called ‘THE WITHHOLD’ — it’s when you have knowledge or information (not always bad or ‘dark’) — knowledge that you’re not sharing.
Sometimes we sense it in others by ‘intuition’ (or ‘gift of discernment’ in some contexts). We may not know WHY we don’t trust that person at that moment, we just have a sense that they’re withholding something (geddit?) from us.
Agreeing to holding secrets, therefore, can put you at risk of that … inauthenticity.
So, I’m really, really reluctant to do it. (But I will if I’ve promised you.)
Continue reading →
So… it’s not just me who feels uneasy about aspects of the recently-released blogger restraint & gagging order I discussed in my post ‘Is this what we want? Internet ‘take down’ and indefinite gagging orders?‘.
Steven Price is a media lawyer, a law lecturer at my alma mater Victoria University of Wellington, and a legal thinker whose blog medialawjournal.co.nz I read now and then. He’s smart.
In an article just published at the Inforrm (International Forum for Responsible Media) Blog, with this scary title: ‘Has the Harassment Act just swallowed the law of defamation?‘ he shares his ‘take’ on Judge David Harvey’s Decision.
Steven Price’s article calls it ‘a radical judgement that bypasses defamation law’ and the restraint order ‘a whopper’ before concluding (as I do) that the take-down order would probably also be granted under the Law Commission’s proposed cyber-bullying regime. Fair enough.
But when I spoke to him about it briefly this afternoon, I think it’s fair to say neither of us felt so sure about the indefinite and very broad gagging order. To me, as I said, and as Jay said here and following, that feels like a step too far. (Tip of the day: Never try to get legal advice from a law lecturer.)
