Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Far fucking out. That’s an inane discussion …
And not for the first time, I wonder why Farrar didn't either leave the comments closed or park 'em up in a moderation queue and quietly delete the ones that made Beck look rational by comparison. He can do both.
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Hard News: How much speech does it take?, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
The Standard is not the left-wing equivalent of the sewer. It’s a partisan site whose authors stand up for their beliefs.
With all due disrespect, Rich, when you’ve being called a house nigger at both The Standard and Kiwiblog let’s see if you want to split that hair any further. And please… Lynn Prentice can keep blaming those nasty right-wing trolls for everything that’s unpleasant about The Standard, but he’s lying. I say that because I don’t believe he’s that stupid or clueless about his own site.
In the end, if Prentice and Farrar can live with (and make some pin-money out of) troll-farming, that’s their prerogative. If they can't (or won't) keep the toxic waste out of the comments, that's their (ir)responsibility. It would be nice, however, if they’d cut the crap and own it. Just once.
That has absolutely not been my experience of The Standard. My experience there has been one of astoundingly nasty commenters telling the “ladyees” to sit down and shut up about our issues, because nobody cares about them.
Damn right, Megan. But I do find it blackly comic that both Kiwibog and The Standard have a sliding scale for sexist or downright misogynistic fuck-wittery as long as (of course) the women concerned are “the enemy”. I know saying this raises certain hackles here – tough. Truth hurts, take two aspirin and don’t call me in the morning.
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Hard News: How much speech does it take?, in reply to Russell Brown,
No, it does not. People do that. Mike King has a heart-rending story of an older woman who contacted him via the Nutters’ Club. Her husband had suicided and she was revictimised by all his former friends, who excluded and effectively dehumanised her.
And in that kind of situation, I can understand (but never condone) people directly affected by a suicide processing their own toxic cocktail of grief and guilt and anger in the most awful way imaginable. Flavell doesn't have that excuse: He's a fraking Member of Parliament who, one hopes, doesn't write newspaper columns with a ouija board and a bottle of gin.
And this needs to be repeated: In six months, Flavell may still be in a position to meaningfully influence policy, funding and provision of health services to at-risk Maori youth and people with mental health issues. Given the attitudes he's displayed (and the deafening silence of the Maori Party's alleged leadership), I think I'm justified in being uneasy.
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Hard News: How much speech does it take?, in reply to Che Tibby,
my reading as well. people are reaming him, but, what are we do about suicides?
Well, Che, as someone with a history of severe mental illness and multiple suicide attempts I don’t think douche-bags like Flavill shaming my parents would have done any good at all. And let’s get fucking real for a moment: That’s exactly what he’s talking about. He’s telling grieving Maori parents that they’re so tainted their dead child is unfit to have a tangi or be laid to rest in a family urupa. That’s no answer at all; and this kind of shit from a Member of Parliament is not only vile beyond belief, it’s dangerous when he might still be in a position to vote on mental health funding in the Parliament.
But, hey, why don’t we take a “hard line” all the way back to the Middle Ages? Exorcisms for schizophrenics and epileptics, anyone – that should school those demoniacally possessed loonies. *eyeroll*
ETA: Something else, Che. My relationship with my mother is (to put it politely) distant and chilly, but I would never ever hold her responsible for my manic-depression. And whatever I think of her, if I'd bled out or successfully OD'ed, I know she would have honestly mourned and not deserved being shunned and abused.
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Hard News: How much speech does it take?, in reply to Che Tibby,
re: Farrar. the farmer is only a little responsible for the dig biting the sheep.
I’d agree with you, up to a point. but if you’re going to starve and mistreat said dog, and fail to keep your fences in good order you don’t get to throw up your hands and say “nuttin’ to do with me” when said dog starts worrying the neighbour’s flock.
But, hey, folks like Farrar and Lynn Prentice have heard all this over and over again. They don’t care, and frankly they’ll have no incentive to clean up their passive-aggressive troll-farming until it starts costing them cold, hard cash.
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Hard News: How much speech does it take?, in reply to Russell Brown,
I do still wonder how Farrar can face getting up in the morning and writing a blog post in the knowledge that it will be another opportunity for those people to air their inane and abhorrent views.
I’ve given up, just as I can’t grok why the Daily Post published Te Ururoa Flavill’s callous and dangerously ignorant suicide concern-troll. ( TRIGGER WARNING FOR ANYONE AFFECTED BY YOUTH SUICIDE. SERIOUSLY. )
Ugh.
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Up Front: How About Now?, in reply to Isabel Hitchings,
The attached video was a complete sniffle-fest. I am especially touched by the older couples who have waited decades for this.
Quite - I keep saying to people who ask "why the hell do you care so much about marriage equality" that they should do the numbers. I'm turning forty next year; and two weeks tomorrow David is hitting sixty-six. When you've got fewer days before you than behind it concentrates the mind.
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Muse: Radio Without Pictures, in reply to Geoff Lealand,
For once, that's not my typo. Promise.
And, yes, Arrietty was wonderful -- when Miyazaki and Isao Takahata hand in their drafting pens, Studio Ghibli will carry on. Will also be spending money I don't really have when the restored version of Metropolis I also saw on Sunday is released on DVD/BR September 8. In many ways, it is very much a product of its time and place but still... there's a solid case to be made for this being the most influential science fiction film ever.
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Hard News: The scandal that keeps on giving, in reply to Hebe,
Quite -- some people hit bottom and can get up (been there, done that, have all the merchandising) and others do the same and smash beyond repair. Poo-sticks. The infuriating thing about Winehouse is that she was a real talent who had the chops not to get stuck in the "white chick listens to a lot of black music" retro ghetto. She had so much more to do than being a tabloid staple.
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Hard News: The scandal that keeps on giving, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
…it’ll be fish and chips off Rupert’s face next week and it’ll all be back to ‘normal’…
And I assume the rest of the British media will be taking the high ground, just as they've stopped running celebutard gossip, invasive trauma porn and pap-smear-arazzi photos of zero news value? To coin a phrase, yeah. Right.
But on the wider point, Ian, you're right -- and nobody should be at all surprised. How soon we forget the public rage and anguished media navel-gazing about how the nasty media killed Saint Diana. What really changed?
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