Media landscape / Acid rain

[hirez]

I dunno that it's worth the wear on fingers, brain and keyboard to fulminate about the supreme uselessness of Guardian journos, but I may as well get it out of my system here rather than gesticulating outside the newsagents. And, really, the Guardian motoring section is more of a tick-list inclusion in one or other of the Saturday throw-outs, along with 'Me and my spoon', 'Pictures of rich people you don't know', 'Useless man's opinion', 'Useless woman's opinion', 'Advert for bicycle-shaped objects' and 'Advert for very mildly pervy underwear'.

So. Guardian mithering section. This week's mithering was one or other of the blokes that write the 'What I watched and you didn't you hopeless pleb god I wish I was as good as Charlie Brooker.' They'd given him some oil-burning Jag and presumably told him not to Troy Queef the thing because it might make George Monbiot cry. Thus him + sig. other beetle off up the M40. And get stuck in the snow. So have to spend the night in Stokenchurch.

How on earth do people that useless manage to live in towns and not get run over by milkfloats or mugged by pensioners?

Obviously, the Guardianista agenda is that large cars are just icky and any opportunity to cast them in poor light must be leapt upon, but that's kind of expected to be the sort of subtext that requires attentive reading. It's a bit bloody desperate when the entire article boils down to 'I can't drive and cars smell of poo!'

Meanwhile the other utterly useless tellybloke is interviewing Simon Pegg and is so completely wet that a Young Ones reference has to be carefully explained.

Lest anyone get the idea that I'm about to start jabbering about Men's Rights and sod off to join a drumming circle peopled by useless bastards... Actually, fuck it. Men's Rights and drumming circles? Useless bunch of bastards. You wouldn't catch anyone who was, y'know, actually any good at stuff having owt to do with that malarkey.

Oh. Hold on. Bit of a leap there. See, what I think is going on is some broken thinking about equality through abdication of competence. There was an article in the same Guardian a couple of weeks ago about some bloke feeling like he didn't measure up because his dad did DIY (to the level of extension building), plumbing, sparking, car-mending and presumably the rest of the Heinleinian competency checklist. And none of these things went badly wrong enough to require the appearance of a smirking Nick Fucking Knowles to make a Heartwarming Documentary.

So anyway, it seems to me that competence and knowing stuff is seen as inimical to equality, which is so far beyond fucked up that I don't know where to begin with it.

And I think that's kind of the thing. It's a massive point-missing exercise, just like their AssangeWikileaks 'coverage'. They're trying to make it all about his personality (hacker - it's either missing or impenetrable to that lot) rather than the sodding data. And the silly bastard should totally go to Sweden and do his bloody time rather than bleating about being caught. Jayzus. (Although, scene-whores, right? Let's not pretend they don't exist.)

Further lest: Stewart Lee nails what's wrong with Top Gear. It is well worth fifteen minutes of your time. Who knows, while you're occupied with that, one or more useless 'celebrities' will have used up their Warholian allotted time and will have been shot by sandmen for attempting to evade Carousel. It's win-win.

Comments

[steer.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what to believe myself. If you believe the Swedish authorities it's quite normal for one prosecutor to say "no case" someone to say "O'Rly?" and another prosecutor to say "we will pursue this will the full force of Swedish justice".

if they plot was to stick him in the stockade at Leavensworth, he'd be better avoiding Northolt, not Stockholm.

I wouldn't know myself but it's certain that's not the case his defence team are making and they are presumably legally trained. If it was complete and obvious bullshit the judge and opposing lawyers would surely spot it as such.

Edit: Hmm... it maybe the judge has just said exactly this.

Edit to edit: My mistake it was the prosecutor and he said that he believed that 'it would be impossible Mr Assange could be extradited without a media storm'". Note the careful choice of words (it's true but it's 100% misleading) -- were I Mr Assange I would find this scant reassurance.

[reddragdiva]

He has Geoffrey Robertson defending him, which I suspect is as good as it gets. I am starting with the assumption that anything Mr Robertson says is competent and to the point in the courtroom, until proven otherwise.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Indeed my opinion too -- what he says is likely to either be true or not trivially detected as untrue.