Spinning bile

This post at The Spin Starts Here would be a worthy recipient of a Blog Bile Award next time it’s up for adjudication. It’s also a fairly convincing demonstration of the decline of civility (a phenomenon never evident here at Troppo, where the worst social sin we ever commit is an occasional bout of patronising but restrained sarcasm). Only trouble is, I can’t work out whether the award should go to “The Hack” (Caz’s partner and co-blogger) or Simon, the comment box contributor he slags for posting a disparaging evaluation of TSSH and all who sail in her.

About Ken Parish

Ken Parish is a legal academic, with research areas in public law (constitutional and administrative law), civil procedure and teaching & learning theory and practice. He has been a legal academic for almost 20 years. Before that he ran a legal practice in Darwin for 15 years and was a Member of the NT Legislative Assembly for almost 4 years in the early 1990s.
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David Tiley
2024 years ago

Unfortunately if we want to fight above our weight and take on world class standards, they have been set very high by the brouhaha about Michael Moore.

Not just Hitch, but this reply..

“Well, that’s rich, isn’t it? Christopher Hitchens crawling out of a bottle long enough to denounce Michael Moore as a coward. I can’t imagine anything more uplifting, except maybe a zoo baboon humping the foot of a medical school cadaver.”

Or here is Mark Morford on the failure to renew the ban on assault weapons in the US:

“Isn’t that great? To hell with logic and to hell with your kids’ safety and to hell with even trying to prevent moron gangbangers and terrorist wanna-bes and imbecilic white supremacists from easily getting their hands on a nice AK-47 that can mow down a schoolyard full of tots in 10 seconds flat. Instead: Down with liberal scum who would take away our God-given right to bear nasty ultraviolent weaponry that no one anywhere can justify the existence of. Go, NRA!…. ”

He does this pretty well every day. Up against this sort of stuff, our present nominee is like a frill knecked lizard intimidating a tornado. hiss hiss hiss..

boynton
2024 years ago

Decline and fall.

Kids stuff.

Craig G
Craig G
2024 years ago

DAvid, precisely how many people in the USA have been killed by white supremacists in the manner suggested?

Talk about straw-men.

The Hack
2024 years ago

Um, have you ever read the rest of the blog, Kenny? It’s one of the most bile-filled around. It’s part of our charm.

That being said, I’m dreadfully sorry, old son, that I didn’t set a better example to children everywhere by responding politely to a prat who came in from nowhere and had a spray at us, sprouting a series of factually incorrect statements and petty little gripes.

So, at the risk of being impolite to you, get bent. I won’t even call you a “fucktard” because I’ve now seen the error of my ways. I do hope that was mildly sarcastic and patronising enough for you, Kenny old son.

Factory
Factory
2024 years ago

Hmm the thing is with the internet that it caters for specialty interests more than your mainstream info sources. That will mean you can get ultra-nice sites, and you can get really nasty ones, ppl who desire to read one can read it without it significantly affecting the other (it’s not like most blogs have to watch ratings).
So TSSH is rather bile filled, but it’s not really a demonstration of any form of decline, just that the internet can cater to all tastes.
Perhaps if there was a large in the popularity and number of such sites, you might have a point.

Jen
Jen
2024 years ago

Not a fucktard? You cunt!

Ken Parish
Ken Parish
2024 years ago

I don’t know what the yoof of today is coming to. Why in my day … A bloke posts a sincere compliment for a bit of quality splenetic blogging, and what does he get? Thanks? Gratitutde? No! A torrent of half-baked, half-hearted abuse. Not even so much as a fucktard. I mean, if a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well, I always say. I always say that Jen, don’t I? You probably thought I’d have an apoplectic fit and pop the rivets on my colostomy bag, didn’t you? Well, don’t you worry about that Hack me boy. You do your worst. I’ve got the Academic Model Heavy Duty Colostomy Bag, guaranteed to withstand mountains of bullshit. Why I remember when ….mffffttt!!! errggghh!!??!! (sound of armadillo being strangled by girlfriend)

Caz
Caz
2024 years ago

Apologies, Ken. I haven’t been feeding The Hack this week and he’s withering, forced to survive on canned soup and whatever else he heats up in the office microwave. This obviously leads to all manner of health concerns, like just what he could be consuming that lives in the communal office microwave. I expect he’ll be back to form when he gets off nightshift at the end of the week.

Jason Soon
Jason Soon
2024 years ago

It’s probably been said before but aren’t you contributing to the decline of civility by handing out these awards?

Scott Wickstein
2024 years ago

To say that there is a decline in civility implies that Australian life was once more civil.

Nabakov
Nabakov
2024 years ago

I think it’s more a case of a decline in the quality of the incivility.

David Tiley
2024 years ago

I don’t know about more civil Scott. It was certainly once much much drearier.

mark
2024 years ago

Note, Jason, that Ken didn’t say that “the decline of civility” is a Bad Thing ;-)

(And well put, Nabakov)