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ONE TRICK TONY
It takes a strong man to avoid the cheap lure of scare quotes. Antony Loewenstein is not a strong man:
Iraq is “liberated”. The people are thankful for the invasion and civilian casualties.
Keen to help the Empire further its “War on Terror?”
… the “liberation” of Kosovo …
… the establishment media takes furious notes then praises the leaders for their “vision.”
… guess who is receiving US aid to continue this “struggle”?
… the Howard government has in the last years sent asylum seekers to Pacific islands for “processing” …
… the Middle East’s “only democracy” …
Anyone who says that we’ve never had such “diversity” of views in our media are technically correct, but the mainstream remains as tightly controlled as ever.
Can we as Australians seriously believe the Bush administration when they say that “our” detainee David Hicks hasn’t been tortured?
… the irrational logic currently employed by Western leaders in their “fight against terror” …
… the fallacy of importing “democracy” into a country divided along ethnic lines …
… John Howard explained his “vision” …
… the true role of journalists in Western “democracies.”
Two months after the “historic” Iraqi elections …
… government still basking in the glow of “liberating” East Timor …
Israel treats many fundamental human rights - among them the right to freedom of movement, family life, health, education, and work - as “humanitarian gestures” that it grants or denies at will …
We’re informed that Palestinians must stop “terrorism” before serious negotiations can occur.
All of us fall prey to the scare-quote lure sometimes, but I bet Loewenstein can’t live without his scare quotes for even a week. He’s an interesting case in the ongoing blogger/journalist wars, is our Antony; he’s a former mainstream journalist turned blogger, you see (and still sells pieces as a freelancer). This is the sort of thing he writes when he’s free of editorial constraints:
By all means imagine encourage much-needed reforms of the UN, but to imagine a world where American unilateralism is the sole arbiter of decision-making, we are heading for a divided world. Are you with or against US government policy? It’s not a decision that countries should have to make.
Imagine editing that. Or even imagine encourage editing that.
It’s bad enough to imagine “writing” it.
Posted by Paul Zrimsek on 2005 04 07 at 03:25 PM • permalinkI’m ‘with’ Paul; I ‘can’t’ imagine how ‘tedious’ it must have been to ‘write’; but I really ‘enjoyed’ the ‘post’...
Posted by Mark Coffey on 2005 04 07 at 03:43 PM • permalinkAnyone who says that we’ve never had such “diversity� of views in our media are technically correct, but the mainstream remains as tightly controlled as ever.
Yes TONY PANDI, Iy is oh so embarrasing to mow be reclassified as “mainstream”.
What will all those “revolutionary shielas” say as they see you as a Bourgeios reactionary? ” Thanks no but thanks, i’d rather pick a sheep shearer”At least he’s brave enough to use hip “street” verb tenses, as in: “The revelations in Fast Food Nation was startling…”
Oh well, I’m sure he posts this stuff on the fly, and that kind of error is forgivable. What may be less forgivable is posting New York Times articles in their entirety (save the opening line).
What the hey? Is that legal in Australia?
Posted by Joe Geoghegan on 2005 04 07 at 06:13 PM • permalinkThe “liberation” of France. (Depends on what one means by “liberation”).
Posted by wronwright on 2005 04 07 at 07:59 PM • permalinkHe’s an interesting case in the ongoing blogger/journalist wars, is our Antony; he’s a former mainstream journalist turned blogger, you see (and still sells pieces as a freelancer).
Tim. Dude! If you’re going to slam someone about their grammar (or even scare quotes), it’s pretty important that you get yours right. Otherwise, it pretty much undermines your point and just makes you look like a bit of a dick.
Natashja, dudette, I’ve read the paragraph you quoted four times and I fail to see the pretty little grammar crime that has your pretty sensibilities all a-twitter. If you want to criticize the grammar of others, it’s pretty important that you actually pick something that is a mistake. Otherwise, it pretty much undermines your pretty little point and makes you look pretty much like a pretty little bitch.
(I even went so far as to run Tim’s passage through Office XP’s grammar check; except for balking at “blogger” and “Antony” it didn’t even give me that annoying “sentence fragment” or “too long” green line error.)
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 04 07 at 09:06 PM • permalinkAndrea,
Maybe Natashja wanted to see a colon instead of a semicolon? That’s all I can come up with.
Of course, after living in Australia for three years, I pretty much had to admit that punctuation marks are used much differently Down Under than they are in the States:- (I saw that weird conglomeration of marks a lot.)
And don’t get me started on “inverted commas”!
Posted by dnewlander on 2005 04 07 at 09:26 PM • permalinkNatashja,
There’s nothing wrong with that construction, sorry.
It may be unfamiliar to you, but it’s certainly not wrong.
Posted by dnewlander on 2005 04 07 at 09:28 PM • permalinkNatashja is talking about the repeating predicate: He (i)s ... is.
Natashja, I don’t know what this is called, but I’ve seen it in a lot of informal writing. It’s meant to mimic a conversational “storyteller” tone. You have to picture Tim standing behind a bar, polishing beer glasses with a rag. On the second “is,” he nods sagely.
Posted by Joe Geoghegan on 2005 04 07 at 09:30 PM • permalinkBy all means imagine encourage much-needed reforms of the UN, but to imagine a world where American unilateralism is the sole arbiter of decision-making, we are heading for a divided world. Are you with or against US government policy? It’s not a decision that countries should have to make.
If you read the Gaurniad or the SMH, that might be the edited version…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 04 07 at 09:36 PM • permalinkIs that Lynne Truss, hiding behind ‘Natashja’? I agree with my fellow commenters, that no crime against grammar has been committed here, although maybe syntax just got bitch-slapped. I’m a grammar-nazi, but readily admit that grammar is ‘situational’: I do not spend my waking life speaking in grammatically perfect sentences. On the genre/grammar spectrum, blogging is somewhere between newspaper columns and conversation.
There’s nothing wrong with that sentence, Natashja. There is nothing wrong with the colloquial us of “he’s” and “is” like that; it may not be appropriate for a bloodless treatise on the gonads of plants, but it’s fine for an informal medium such as satirical writing.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 04 07 at 09:46 PM • permalinkI take this Antony considers himself a “writer” and an “intellect”.
Heaven forbid that dear Antony should have to “live” in a world in which “countries” have to make “decisions” such as what is the “right” thing or the “wrong” thing to do when there really is no such “thing” as “right” and “wrong”. It is all “relative”; ergo there no “democracies” and “liberation” is a “fantasy”. “Politics” is all about “power” and the “unilateralal” use thereof.
My “God” it is “catching”.
Twenty nice comments and I think twenty are about grammar. Geesh.
I think Natashja’s suggested sentences are good ones. But Tim’s is fine also.
We look forward to your next A-HA! Natashja. But I can’t imagine any mispellings or improper
grammergrammar getting by Andrea. Not now.Posted by wronwright on 2005 04 08 at 12:51 AM • permalinkDang, I mispelled “nine”. And she’s sure to see it. Of course, it’s Tim’s scalp she’s after, not mine.
Posted by wronwright on 2005 04 08 at 12:53 AM • permalinkIffen you is worried about my grammar, Natashja, don’t you fret none, now. My grammar is jest fine; she be out in the kitchen, making some plumb deeeee-licious sugar cookies!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 04 08 at 01:23 AM • permalinkAre you with or against US government policy? It’s not a decision that countries should have to make.
I’m really curious what’s going on in Antony’s head.
How, exactly, would it be possible to avoid that decision, short of being completely irrelevent to US policy?
Posted by John Nowak on 2005 04 08 at 04:06 AM • permalinkHow, exactly, would it be possible to avoid that decision, short of being completely irrelevent to US policy?
Antony really doesn’t want to get involved in foreign policy at all. He just wants to chuck shit from the sidelines.
Kinda like chimps do with faeces.
Posted by Quentin George on 2005 04 08 at 04:41 AM • permalinkThis is “off” topic “but”.. Renowned “futurist” Richard “Dick” Neville has “had” another brain “fart” which “has” traveled “through” his fingertips into “his” keyboard and into “the” internets. Ladies and Gents - please visit “Dick’s” site and comment. p.s. please dont refer to him as“Mongo”.
Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2005 04 08 at 05:23 AM • permalinkHe is wrong, is our President.
He kills kittens, does our President.Evidently the subject and operator (be/do) are repeated. The apparent point is bringing the focus back on the subject. I don’t know a name for the construction.
You can uninvert the thing and get a different emphasis, more on the verb :
He is wrong, our President is.
He kills kittens, our President does.Iraq is “liberated�. The people are thankful for the invasion and civilian casualties.
Yes, “casualties”. Is the Lancet still trying to keep up?
How about tallying the “casualties” caused by (a) Saddam and his thugs, and (b) assorted & imported Arab thugs and terrorists post invasion?
How about focussing on causality, as well as “casualties”?
Bad government at the nation-state level followed by shockingly poor oversight from the UN (stacked with stooges) has to be blamed loudly and repeatedly to avoid this sort of crass appeal to anti-american prejudice.rosceo — This is your brain.
This is your brain on the barbie.
In Richard Neville’s case, I believe the clinical term is “fugbuck.”Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 04 08 at 09:58 AM • permalink
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but to imagine a world where American unilateralism is the sole arbiter of decision-making, we are heading for a divided world.
That’s anacoluthon. Poets like Kenneth Burke use it
A great amt. of beauties emplenish the world,
Wherein I would o’erglance upon.
There are those which you go out and exclaim :
``Why! How brim-brim!’‘
or a lingistics student’s
<i>Prescriptive grammar is what some people (the ones who write the books) think everyone who speaks English should follow their rules </i>
which is hard to improve on