Sharpe's Opinion
Monday, 27th Jul, 2009
Flying Rodent: Everyone In The Blogroll Excepted, Of Course
Flying Rodent doesn’t want newspapers to go away and leave the blogosphere as the world’s primary news source, and writes about it, on his blog, in a highly entertaining manner:
Make no mistake – the day that blogs become the primary news source for a plurality of the populace will be a cataclysm at the species level, like Spanish Flu or the Black Death.
If I believed what I read just on British blogs, I’d genuinely believe that the country was simultaneously powerless before a ravening horde of scimitar-wielding foreign invaders and seconds away from marching all minorities into death camps. I’d believe that democracy itself – an electorate voting in favour of public services and the necessary taxation to cover them – is a psychotic tyranny akin to Nazi Germany. I’d never set foot over my door for fear that I’d be instantly raped in the face by a gang of feral crackheads. […]
Never mind blogs as a primary news source, I’m struggling to think of a handful of bloggers who would merit even the fabled fifteen minutes of fame. That’s particularly ironic, since the vast majority of them certainly deserve chemical castration, and that’s being charitable.
I’m extraordinarily impressed with the satire on display between the first and second paragraphs above, of course1 – the country is going to the dogs, because people keep saying the country is going to the dogs… But I can’t help but wonder if the newspapers are any better? As far as I can tell the most hysterical blogs tend to be mostly aping the style of the major news outlets anyway.
The trick, of course, is not to read them all…
- Unless I’m being generous and it’s actually just hypocrisy, we’ll leave the reader to decide… [↩]
Comments
LFAT: it’s as close or as far as you want it to be. Far more problems for PLU are created by our brethren. And the Daily Mail.
Indeed, Tizzy – it’s all about perception.
I find if you just concentrate on stuff that actually affects your day-to-day life and don’t really worry about anything else, the world feels like a much better place.
Politics is just the stuff that gets in the way.
Martha Gellhorn, the great war correspondent, said: “People will often say, with pride: ‘I’m not interested in politics.’ They might as well say, ‘I’m not interested in my standard of living, my health, my job, my rights, my freedoms, my future or any future.’”
I have to say, I respectfully disagree, and I think that belies a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of politics.
I’m much more tempted by Ronald Reagan’s ‘Politics is the Problem’ argument.
Put it this way: it’s no coincidence that all of the personal relationships, careerism and general human tension that prevents people from getting on with their work when they are at work is called ‘office politics’.
“If I believed what I read just on British blogs, I’d genuinely believe that the country was simultaneously powerless before a ravening horde of scimitar-wielding foreign invaders and seconds away from marching all minorities into death camps”
It’s debatable how far that is from the truth.
Letters From A Tory
July 28, 2009 at 9:52 am