I see the results of the Australian Blog Awards have just been published at Keks (Vlado). Troppo Armadillo did quite well, despite the fact that I didn’t even know the awards existed and therefore missed the opportunity to engage in surreptitious lobbying or vote-stacking. Troppo won the best collaborative blog award, beating a hot field including Spin Starts Here, Catallaxy Files and Ubersportingpundit.
We also won best NT blog, which isn’t such a great feat considering there seems to be only one other NT political blog in existence, and I didn’t even know about it either until now. Actually, there’s a respectable argument that Troppo really isn’t even a Northern Territory blog any more. Wayne, Jen and I are the only NT-based contributors. Wayne and I are both fairly infrequent posters these days, and Jen seems to have decided to aspire to another writing project instead. The great bulk of Troppo’s content these days emanates from Mark Bahnisch who lives in Queensland, Don Arthur who used to live in WA (and may still for all I know), Scott who lives in South Australia, and less frequent posts from Geoff Honnor, Wendy James and Sophie Masson all of whom live in New South Wales*. But who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth?
The overall best blog award went to Reasons You Will Hate Me (a blog I seldom read) ahead of Tim Dunlop’s consistently excellent Road to Surfdom. It seems fairly clear, however, that the voting readership for these awards was heavily skewed to the left, as demonstrated not only by the winners list but by the fact that Tim Blair was in a strong second place for the main award on primary votes but only ran fourth after distribution of preferences. Moreover, quality and/or popular right-leaning blogs like Currency Lad, Al Bundy and Professor Bunyip apparently didn’t figure in the nominations at all. I’m tempted to observe that, just as Australian Idol winners reflect little more than the tastes of pre-pubescent girls, so these awards mostly reflect the tastes of young lefties with too much time on their hands. But I mustn’t be churlish. Hang on, I just was. Then again, I’m relaxed and comfortable about being middle-aged and grumpy.
*Not to mention Stephen Hill, who still posts occasionally but whose State of residence is unknown to me, and Roop Sandhu, who doesn’t (but emailed me a couple of days ago) and also lives in New South Wales (or did last time I saw him).
Currency got quite a few nominations, as did a number of other r/w blogs.
http://kekoc.com/wp/archives/2004/12/14/2005-australian-blog-awards-nominations/#comments
I’m very distraught that Evil Pundit didn’t win “Best Humorous Blog” (nominated by Nabakov as I recall).
I seem to have gotten a lot more votes than my political views would deserve. I resolve to be more right-wing in the future, some of my readers are obviously confused.
I stacked the NT vote for you Ken. Please forward me money at your earliest convenience.
PS: are you going to write more now, or what?
Actually I suggested Evil Pee’s nomination for “best humourous blog” at the Koufax Awards
http://wampum.wabanaki.net/archives/001502.html -cos I was getting fed up of waiting for “Scanners” to come out on DVD.
It’s a pity Troppo has descended into just another lefty blog with Mark Bahnisch virtually assuming ownership. Good to see Geoff back very recently but it will take a lot more from him to go anyway towards rescusitating Troppo back to its former(very), well-deserved reputation as the most thought-provoking blog in the sphere.
I detested Chris Shiel’s rubbish, but at least he had the decency once he started to dominate Troppo to start his own blog. Essentially I see Barnisch as a techno parasite. A decent burial would have been better, Ken. Anytime you found the urge to put your toe back in the water it would have been better for you to have become a guest contributer on say Catallaxy or Currency Lad.
ron, I’d be more inclined to respect your opinion if you expressed yourself more civilly and actually mounted some constructive criticism, rather than deriding me and Chris Sheil for being “lefties”. But nevertheless, you might be surprised to hear that I’ve shared some of your concerns, as I indicated in an earlier thread.
http://troppoarmadillo.ubersportingpundit.com/archives/008276.html#036848
http://troppoarmadillo.ubersportingpundit.com/archives/008276.html#036849
Frankly, and this is not a criticism of anyone, as people have lives outside blogs, and are entitled to a break when they feel like it (and this should be more readily doable on a group blog like Troppo), if Don Arthur and I hadn’t been posting regularly here for the last couple of months there would have been very little on these pages for anyone to read.
I’ve said privately (to Troppo colleagues) and publicly that I’d have much preferred to see a broader mix of posts at Troppo and for me as well it’s excellent to see Wayne, Geoff and Ken all posting.
With regard to my own writing, I do try to argue a case and take into account counter arguments. I’m not interested in leftish ranting (or RWDB ranting for that matter). Rather, I’m interested in communicating and provoking argument and interchange, from which I can learn.
If I thought that what I do here was not part of the Troppo ethos, then I would indeed go elsewhere. But that’s not my view. I’m very proud and honoured to have been asked by Ken to join Troppo particularly because I believe in its ethos and culture.
Thus, I think your characterisation of my participation in this blog as leading to “just another lefty blog with Mark Bahnisch virtually assuming ownership” is wrong and manifestly unfair. You do your argument no credit whatsoever by calling me a parasite and deliberately misspelling my name. In that vein, I’d invite you to reflect on the tone of your discourse particularly in light of your apparent support for thought provoking commentary. Vulgar abuse doesn’t meet that standard, and I find your comments unnecessarily offensive. To the degree that you have a reasonable point, I hope that you’ll agree on reflection that I’ve tried to respond reasonably to your criticism in good faith.
I apologise for the typo in misspelling your name. You’ll note that it was correctly spelt in my first line.
No probs, ron, apology accepted. I’d still like you to argue your point of view more. I’m happy to take note of constructive criticism.
My comment wasn’t meant to be “constructive”, Mark. I’m expressing my disappointment at the direction of Troppo during 2004 because I remember it as it was, justifiably one of the foremost Australian blogs, well respected by both right-wing and left-wing bloggers. Many’s the time I was led to it from a link on other blogs.
Ken called himself a centrist but repectfully I disagree with him. He swung unpredictably from left to right and back again on many issues, although soft-left may well describe his average position. But, hell, average is a strange concept. One foot in boiling water, the other encased in ice and you have a nice “average” temperature. His posts were always worth reading and commenting on, and as Ken will himself admit, some of the comment threads were a treat in themselves.
Inevitably he lost interest, probably due to his turbulent personal life. Those of us who have following his musings over a couple of years may feel that his well-deserved prominence in the blogosphere was prompted by the strains he was feeling in his marriage, either exacerbating them or as relief from them.
I personally regret the passing into sunset of Troppo. Hopefully the re-emergence of Ken in the past week signifies a return of interest, but my life experiences lead me to the belief that such come-backs are shortlived. I think Ken has moved on. If so, I can only wish him the very best.
As for your contribution, Mark, it is a source of wonder to me that so many lefties deny their leftism, unlike right-wingers who actually (most of us anyway) rejoice in the appellation RWDB.
Possibly the term “parasite”, on reflection, was a bit harsh. But please forgive my conservatism. I do consider your dominence a degeneration of the once-fine reputation of Troppo. It’s a bit like a company that’s been taken over by a rival. The brand name ain’t what it once was. Oh well, that nostalgia for you.
Ok, fair enough, ron, but I don’t deny being a leftie. And for that matter, I enjoy reading Ken too and hope his return is permanent and prolific.
while it’s nice of ron to mention catallaxy favourably i think he is being a tad unkind to mark bahnisch. mark isn’t a knee-jerk lefty at all and like his blogmate don arthur he has a nice tangential academic style which means his posts transcend humdrum political bickering and are so much the better than your run of the mill stuff.
Thanks, Jason.
Ron (and others)
First, I couldn’t agree more with Jason’s observation about Mark and Don being anything but stereotypical lefties. I invited them to join Troppo precisely because both are not only erudite and widely read, but also because each in his own way offers original insights and perspectives that you just don’t find in the mainstream media (or other blogs).
As for my own blogging future, who knows? I’ve had blogging hiatuses before and returned refreshed and reinspired with new topics to write about. With all their shortcomings, I admire columnists like Phillip Adams who manage to churn out op-ed pieces year after year and remain (mostly) readable and interesting (if sometimes derivative almost to the point of plagiarism). My latest (hopefully just ended) hiatus occurred partly because I’ve been busy with life issues (moving into and renovating a new house, and visiting Jen’s and my rellies “down south”), partly because we didn’t until recently have an Internet connection at home (and I wasn’t at work because I was on annual leave), and partly because I just didn’t have anything very much to say that I thought readers would find interesting.
The great Gummo Trotsky recently retired from blogging completely because he’d run out of original things to write about (or so he said), and I felt a bit the same. I’m hoping that the break may have recharged the batteries, and certainly I have a couple of meaty posts percolating around in the braincells. Whether my blogging flow is ever restored to its previous level of verbosity remains to be seen, but I reckon I’ll manage a few posts a week, and that should be more than enough given Mark B’s high quality productivity (in blogging if not thesis writing) and the less frequent contributions of Don, Sophie, Wayne, Geoff etc. I don’t think anyone could reasonably stereotype Troppo as either predictably left or right leaning. Hopefully, in our diverse ways we offer challenging and thought-provoking perspectives on current issues at least often enough to make this blog worth continuing to visit and read, even if you sometimes violently disagree with the viewpoint of a given author.
‘…certainly I have a couple of meaty posts percolating around in the braincells.’
I hope one of them is about Habib and the Proceeds of Crime Act. The view that Rudock could prosecute successfully has been put by Atticus, chez Quiggin: http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2005/01/29/habib-and-proceeds-of-crime
As I mentioned before elsewhere here, the term “lefty” does get thrown around an awful lot, ‘specially by self-indentified RWDBs who think it’s the ultimate putdown for anyone who disagrees with their views du jour.
Apparently for some, criticising our leaders and their policies while also believing in the fundamental tenets of western democracy, skeptical thought and free speech is concept that be handled through simplistic labels.
OK, Ron doesn’t like what Mark says. So what? He’s got three options. Shut Mark up, scroll past him or go somewhere else.
It’s called freedom of choice Ron. Got a problem with that?
Complaining about someone else’s blog content is probably one of the most pointless exercises on the planet.
Hrummphh!!
“a concept that can only be handled”
‘Only” is a lonely word.
OzBloggies redux
I’ve written elsewhere that one of the blogosphere’s favourite topics of conversation is itself. In that tradition, let me round up a few comments about the Oz blog awards of the past few days. Ken Parish accepted Troppodillo’s award with…