Posts by Craig Ranapia
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I can't find the link again, but there was a delightfully pompous piece in The Age decrying how awful people are on the internet. Maybe there's a point there, but when the Australian media seem obsessed with concern trolling drunken football players and bed-hopping soap actors? (Surprise! adolescents with too much money, no discernible boundaries and bugger all adult supervision may not act very well while in a state of self-induced chemical poisoning.. Sticking a camera up their twats probably not very helpful.)
Right message, perhaps, but not really the most credible of pulpits.
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Hard News: CELEBRITY DRUG SHOCK NEWS! AGAIN., in reply to Tamara,
I don't see how dying in her bath was her way of giving permission.
That's not what Russell was saying. But hell, if a washed-up pop star with a drug problem (and allegedly leaving her estate owing millions of dollars in advances) could find a way to peg out more calculated to send the media panty-sniffers into a frenzy, I can't imagine it.
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Hard News: NZ On Screen: The…, in reply to Matthew Littlewood,
Yes, I agree. And well done to whoever managed to arrange the TV3 screening to coincide with the anniversary of the event.
I’m just hoping (but not holding my breath) that Three will decide to screen it ad-free. Not only because ads would would be a wee bit tacky, but it would really fuck up the experience of a film that (IMO) really strikes a difficult tonal balance. City could very easily have degenerated into pure lachrymose disaster porn, and it's so much more effecting for not going there.
Errol Morris’ The Fog of War showed up in the graveyard shift a couple of times last year, and it was just infuriating to have his dense but deceptively layering of speech and image punctured (in more than one case, literally in mid-sentence) for exhortations to buy Ah! Bras and magic ladders.
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Hard News: This Is Not A Complicated Issue, in reply to Sacha,
the irony didn’t escape
Didn't think it would. The Herald stable is full of ironies that don't even make a break for it. Instead, they follow you home and refuse to leave.
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Hard News: This Is Not A Complicated Issue, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
Sorry. this is on the wrong thread.
No, exactly the right one. Faabulous! :)
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Hard News: This Is Not A Complicated Issue, in reply to Sacha,
Willie Jackson add some context – with much more grace than redneck columnists have shown over the years.
Ah yes, Willie Jackson’s such a “gracious” chap – especially when he gave Clint Rickards a free and uncritical run to trash Louise Nicholas as a mentally-unstable liar. I guess when it comes down to choosing between asking a prominent Maori man a hard question or two and putting an uppity women back in her place, a “toxic mix of arrogance and ignorance” never hurts your career.
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Hard News: This Is Not A Complicated Issue, in reply to linger,
One could try a screen-grab and then attach the jpg.
That presumes a degree of technical competence on my part, but thanks for making it unnecessary Linger. :)
Er, Isn’t that his point? Back at them, see how it feels? Maybe too subtle for some.
Yeah… but, nah. Perhaps cartoonists need to think a little harder about using the imagery of mental illness for shit that isn’t actually mental illness. And, hey, if we depict Holmes and Laws (or Paul Henry) as straight-jacketed loons we don’t have to think too hard about the people who coldly, rationally enable them because it’s good for business. And isn’t it funny how those people tend to be men of a certain *cough* demographic profile that is heavily over-represented in the upper echelons of senior editorial and management?
I get the point that Scott is trying to make; just wish he could have done so without resorting to such hackneyed imagery when it’s really no more OK to stigmatize mental illness than physical disability.
ETA: Oh, and before anyone tells me to get a sense of humor I'm pretty glad not to hear "retarded" and "spastic" as a term for disagreeably stupid behavior or statements as much as I used to when a nipper. I'll also continue to discourage younglings of my acquaintance from using "gay" as a term of disapproval. What's "PC gone mad" to some is simple good taste to others.
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Hard News: This Is Not A Complicated Issue, in reply to linger,
Thanks – I can’t figure out how to perma-link to a specific cartoon, and if anyone can shine a light I’ll be most appreciative.
Still when bitching Paul Homes for being a lazy, bigoted ignoramus of a columnist it would help if Scott himself didn’t indulge in a bit of visual shorthand that lazily and ignorantly equates racist frak-wittery with mental illness and/or disability.
Just as an FYI, Tom, I don’t choose to be bipolar. (For that matter, nobody chooses to be in a state of mental unwellness so severe they need to be restrained to prevent harm to themselves or others.)
Folks like Holmes and Laws do have all kinds of choices -- whether or not to be careless on matters of fact, downright trollish in public and truculently unwilling to own their own shit. Their employers have a choice whether or not to be leaders and assert basic either standards, or troll-farm and enable for fun and profit.
This isn’t a complicated issue either, Tom.
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Hard News: This Is Not A Complicated Issue, in reply to Chris Waugh,
For example, I think I just found myself agreeing with Paul Holmes.
Does happen - I don't think I'm the only person around here who finds John Roughan something of an unlucky dip. Never know if you're going to get something well-argued and humane or stupid as a sack of nails.
Meanwhile, on a not completely unrelated tangent WTF, Tom Scott?
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Oh sweet Jesus, sorry for the variation on a theme but does John Drinnan have any shame or sense of irony? This is way too good not to quote almost in full
Paul Holmes will be back on Q&A soon moderating debates on political issues - including about Maori and race relations.
After his column in the Weekend Herald telling Maori what he thought, TVNZ has received a nice bit of promotion.
What sort of state broadcast company is happy to have one of its main current affairs hosts promoting his personal and controversial views?
Maybe it's time TVNZ forgot about its marketing people and went back to the rule book on credible current affairs.
Holmes' opinion piece attacked protesters at Waitangi Day commemorations. There are some who will agree with his view, but has current affairs got to the point it will sacrifice credibility because it is grateful for the promotion?
Holmes did not carefully differentiate his views on the transgressions of Waitangi protesters and what he thought of Maori as a whole.
Some of us will assume the best - that his anger was addressed against protesters. Others will think the worst.
"Never mind the child stats, never mind the national truancy stats, never mind the hopeless failure of Maori to educate their children and stop them bashing their babies. No, it's all the Pakeha's fault. It's all about hating whitey," Holmes wrote.
The Herald published a carefully becalmed response from Mana Party leader Hone Harawira.
Many would agree both men have a right to express an opinion.
But how does Holmes the racial commentator step into his role as a moderator and interviewer on Q&A?
How can anyone take him seriously running a debate about racial issues, or even the SOE sales, and pretending that he does not have strong - some detractors would believe ugly - views on race?
TVNZ current affairs boss John Gillespie said: "An occasional opinion piece for the Herald is not going to undermine Paul's performance as presenter of Q&A, given his experience and professionalism.
"Paul will continue to treat all Q&A guests with equal rigour, fairness and balance."
So TVNZ is another step into the netherworld where it views its journalists and interviewers as people who are talking to a constituency and not remaining objective.
So nice passive-aggressive swipe at the state broadcaster without asking the obvious follow up when it gets too close to home. If Holmes 'the racial commentator" is unfit to front Q&A, then why is he a fit person to be a brand-name columnist for the Herald stable?
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