Angry Men

Posted by Peter

The Worth saga rumbles on and is a delightfully messy scandal.  I wouldn’t want to say much because Worth is a big, fat hairy lawyer and will sue anybody and anything that displeases him.  Truly the world is going mad when Cameron Slater (Whaleoil – I won’t link to it) is on the idiot box in the guise of an “informed commentator”. Someone played an amusing little trick on TVNZ that time.  I would like to point at a couple of pieces of radio. 

The first is yesterday’s 3 way love fest between Sean Plunket, Richard Griffin and Richard Prebble on RNZ’s “Morning Report”.  The audio is at RNZ (scroll down for an mp3) Pretty disgusting stuff.  Three good ol’ boys blaming Phil Goff and the various women Worth has “bothered”.  The euphemisms that have been used are simply terrible.  “Made a nuisance of” and so on.  Sheesh.  Anyway, this segment consitutes apalling radio that everyone involved should be ashamed of.  Smugness, complacency and self satisfaction ooze from all 3 of these bozos.  I’ve always thought Plunket would be happiest commentating on a rugby match with a six pack and pie in his hand. Not one of the great thinkers of our time and he really hit a low point with that segment. 

On the other hand, Mary Wilson in “Checkpoint” had John key squiriming like a squirmy thing.  Great interviewing and nicely judged.  He came away looking like a complete fool.  And since when does the word “texts’ rhyme with “Texas”? This was RNZ doing exactly what it should.

Speaking of stupid men, Karl du Fresne has been at it again. This is a sordid business based on an earlier blog post of his which was dumb in the extreme.  Shorter message of both posts:  academics, espcially those involved in media studies, are left wing stooges of some Marxist conspiracy to brainwash students and said academics know nothing about the “real world”.  Sigh.  Pretty much yer standard anti intellectual gibberish from someone who doesn’t teach, read peer reviewed journals or attend academic conferences where the issues he raises are thrashed out.  The most amusing part of his original post was when he found out all about Pierre Bourdieu via Google and quoted his fellow columnist Bob Brockie as describing Michel Foucault as “a fruit cake”.  That cosntitutes research in Karl’s world.  I challenged him to actually go away and read the work of these subtle and complicated thinkers but no joy so far.  For a very rich and full dissection of Karl’s efforts, here is my colleague Martin Hirst.  I don’t have much to add to Martin’s comments except that I do wish people like Karl would take the effort to read the works of the philosophers they so blandly dismiss.  D- Karl.  More research needed.  This one by Karl is even funnier on so many levels and it’s about radio.  You kids get offa my lawn … What a jerk. The Onion has a delightful piece here that sums up the likes of Karl, Wishart, Kiwiblog etc.

I do wish NZ’s commentariat, both digital and dead tree wasn’t dominated by a bunch of resentful, middle aged men like Karl, Holmes, Leighton, Ralston, Garth George etc.  Here’s a catchy little number which may not be safe for work – visuals are OK but the language is a bit rough.  It’s a useful soundtrack when perusing the likes of Kiwiblog, Garth, Karl, Ralston and the hapless Worth. This one is especially dedicated to Michael Lawhs.