Posts Tagged ‘debate’
Harawira: Fortune favours the brave
What do we take from ‘rebel’ MP Hone Harawira winning his by-election? … Even with a ‘slashed’ majority — from 6,000 to 867. Wait and see. Let the punditry begin. It must certainly be a victory sweetened by the decision by the Electoral Commission to register his new party, meaning he will be a ‘leader’ […]
Harsh criticism? Or Fair?
Spotted this from Glenn Greenwald re TV personality Chris Matthews … Now, as I replied, some might see such a strident comment about a fellow ‘peer in the industry’ as ill-motivated unprofessional. Not me. I think someone paying attention to the ‘industry’ (like, in this case Greenwald) is obliged to highlight what you see as […]
Things that aren’t supposed to be said
Following up on my post the other day about deciphering political codes, highlighting how political campaigns sometimes try to imply the unsayable (like ‘Keep Howick White’) … here’s a fantastic article by Gabriel Sherman in New York Magazine about Fox News supremo Roger Ailes dealing with unstable wunderkind Glenn Beck … which relates to the […]
Overcome the past by FACING it
This article (below) from The Guardian‘s ‘Comment is free’ site reminded me of the wonderful, uplifting movie The Lives of Others which featured the late Ulrich Mühe in the role of a world-worn East German secret policeman whose job it was to bug a playwright’s apartment and report on the goings on. I won’t spoil […]
Honest opinion
A brief extract from Bevan Marten’s thesis ‘A FAIRLY GENUINE COMMENT ON HONEST OPINION IN NEW ZEALAND’ … (Victoria University) [PDF 400k] III UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES Common to all such jurisdictions is the major tension in the law of defamation between freedom of expression and the individual’s right to reputation. The defence of honest opinion holds […]
PropertyTalk, public criticism and the public good
An interesting discussion has started about discussion forum PropertyTalk in the comments thread of my post about Linking to sources and the Sean Wood case study. Two of my favourite PropertyTalk (ex) posters poormastery and exnzpat kicked it off last night in response to comments from Perry … with some pretty strong opinions… PT moderator […]
An insight into sociopaths and liars
This quote, from an excellent Tom Junod piece in Esquire on Murdoch’s Fox News Gruppenführer Roger Ailes, says a LOT about the trouble with trying to shame the manipulative, or liars and con artists … The pundits, the professors, the professional journalists, the left-wingers, the tree huggers, the liberal blogosphere, President Obama — they all […]
Why am I doing this? Muckraking?
Remember Cactus Kate’s description of blogging as “an utterly useless waste of a person’s time” (Soooo well put, Kate!) But her comment, of course, fits into Jonathan Swift’s self-aware description of satire … Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own, which is the chief reason for […]
Goodbye from Keith Olbermann
I rate broadcaster Keith Olbermann highly, especially his eloquence and his passion and his willingness to face, call out and go after hypocrisy. From the New York Times 12:05 a.m. | Keith Olbermann, the highest-rated host on MSNBC, announced abruptly on the air Friday night that he was leaving his show, “Countdown,” immediately. The host, […]
Not a bad mission statement
Broadcaster Keith Olbermann recently gave an insight into his motivations and goals for a controversial segment of his show… “This ordinarily is where you would see our ‘Worst Persons in the World‘ segment,” Olbermann said Monday late into the broadcast. “For more than two months, I’ve struggled with its value. We suspended it for a […]
Not exactly a whodunnit
‘Dispersing lies’ — that’s what I’ve been accused of doing, by ‘expert in lying‘, spruiker Dean Letfus. His detail-free allegation (by broadcast email and on his blog) comes with bonus faulty logic and an extra smear topping: that I am allegedly doing this (‘dispersing lies’) as ‘a competitor’ — which is kind of an understated […]
What does your ‘opinion’ reveal about you?
People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Everyone is entitled to my opinion. — attributed to pop singer Madonna Now, there’s a powerful pair of thoughts. Expressing one’s ‘opinion of the world’ through writing is, by its very nature, the result […]
An insane order of priorities …
Once again, Jon Stewart uses his platform — on Comedy Central (!!) — to sound a call for reason and justice and fair treatment. Watch as he castigates the Republican senators (and their mealy-mouthed supporters) for filibustering on the 9/11 First Responders’ medical benefits bill while whistling ‘tax cuts for the rich’ through an easy […]
The Ridiculist – catchy title, nice approach
In a case of ‘sometimes if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry’, from The Spruiker’s Lament … Peter Aranyi makes fun of spruikers and travelling salesmen as if they were actually ridiculous… At the time I hadn’t seen Anderson Cooper’s The Ridiculist (“a new hypocrisy-exposing segment on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360“) … but I like it. […]
