October 07, 2003
IRAQI CHILDREN NOW SAFER THAN EVER
Gina Wilkinson, the ABC reporter who asked Iraqi children to gambol and caper around unexploded ordnance, has quit the network following her exposure on Media Watch. Where will she go next? Possibly to Webdiary, where Margo Kingston could use some help negotiating the minefield that is the English language:
Cancun. The World Trade Organisation. Free trade. It's too hard. That's how the big players like it - too complex for us poor sods who have to wear the pain and surrender our democratic rights in its service and so secretive we're don't get the chance to work it out even we we wanted to.
Margo. The Sydney Morning Herald. Good writing. It’s too hard! Hey, at least she’s successfully defused the G’Day Bomb that was giving her so much grief; Margo’s latest Webdiary jabber actually begins with a proper G’day.
No word yet, however, on her apparent breach of Sydney Morning Herald ethics. My e-mail to SMH exec editor Tom Burton hasn't been answered. Is he being so secretive we're don't get the chance to work it out even we we wanted to?
UPDATE. A Sky News reporter whose faked-up Iraq war item is described here has apparently killed himself.
Posted by Tim Blair at October 7, 2003 02:11 AMGee. Margo, maybe the reason a subject like international trade relations is "hard" is because it's inherently complex, multifaceted, full of interrelated cause and effect, which doesn't lend itself effectively to simpleminded reductionist thinking. And the people who work in it-- the big players-- study really hard at it, and think long and hard about it, and devote their lives to making sense of it. I'm sure they're very sorry that it isn't as simple as shitting out newspaper columns full of despair.
Posted by: Mike G at October 7, 2003 at 02:49 AMI'm sure the "we we" bit was a Freudian slip. She meant "wee wee", and indication that she's prepared to piss on anything she doesn't like or understand.
Posted by: Hatcher at October 7, 2003 at 03:31 AMAnd the inadvertant "d" in my last post is an indication that I'm too tired to be reading all these blogs after work.
Posted by: Hatcher at October 7, 2003 at 03:33 AMPittsburgh. Kentucky Fried Chicken. Naugahyde. It's too hard. That's how the secretive colossal puppeteer like it - too complex, too coherently confusionalisticky for us poor sods who have to wear we're itchiness and thinking-thingy our democratical electived-brains in its service and so secretive we're don't isn't shalln't get the opportunitings to work it out even we we we all the way home, if we'we'r wanted to.
Posted by: iowahawk at October 7, 2003 at 05:58 AMI noticed that one of the anti-globalists that Margo quoted went on and on about the security in Cancun and how the "coddled" foreign ministers went about their business inside a "$6 million 'impenetrable' fence buttressed with thousands of riot police with batons, shields, and hidden canisters." He then properly empathized with the poor locals who had to navigate "roadblock after roadblock" to get to work.
Whose fault is this? It's the capitalists' fault, of course, for being arrogant enough to surround themselves with security to insulate themselves from the "people" who wished to discuss global economics with them...usually via thrown rocks, feces, or whatever other form of persuasion they can lay their hands on.
Posted by: Randal Robinson at October 7, 2003 at 06:13 AMStart another donation campaign, Tim. You could tuck into the project again when you have enough for a Mercedes E-55.
No one literate can be expected to take that kind of punishment day after day so it's no wonder it doesn't get proofed.
Posted by: Theodopoulos Pherecydes at October 7, 2003 at 06:37 AMI am still in awe that they held that meeting in Cancun. I'd almost become a protester if some organization would fly me down there to help protest. Then I would quickly find my way to nice sandy beach and enjoy a couple cervezas and margaritas.
I think the WTO should hold their next meeting inf Fairbanks, Alaska. And preferably in January. The protesters would just flock to that wonderful environment.
Posted by: derf at October 7, 2003 at 07:14 AM"wear the pain"???
Even Bill Clinton only felt the pain. Margo has to wear it.
Posted by: Mike Smith at October 7, 2003 at 07:34 AMMy thoughts exactly, Theodopoulos! There is no proofreading of Margo's outpourings since no-one - not even at the Herald - could stand to soak up her "we we" day after day. Especially while she is on her planet-saving "no flush" crusade.
Posted by: Bob Bunnett at October 7, 2003 at 09:05 AMDoes anyone watch channel 31 (or 35 or whatever it is?) It's protest coverage is unintentionaly hillareous. It's like these people are doing a brilliant right-wing satire of every ignorant hippie steriotype imaginable. It's no wonder they got their asses kicked in the cold war.
Posted by: Amos at October 7, 2003 at 11:16 AMBob, also dont forget that she is also going to singlehandedly bankrupt the tobacco industry by quitting. However I have this feeling that she has taken it up again though, otherwise by now she would be crowing about how good she felt since she gave up.
Posted by: Rob at October 7, 2003 at 11:18 AM"Wear the pain?" Well, let see: A hair shirt, tight shoes with high heels, a wire bra with the wire poking through . . .
Posted by: Joanne Jacobs at October 7, 2003 at 12:07 PMLefties like Margo can only think in simplistic cliches - preferably, one-word ones. I'm surprised she hasn't commented on Arnold Schwarznegger yet: bodybuilder, Teuton, millionaire = anti-woman, Nazi, right-wing beast. Ergo,Margo.
Posted by: Rob (No 1) at October 7, 2003 at 12:49 PMYou can fake stories for a while, but you can't get away with it Forlong.
(With all due respect to James. RIP.)
Posted by: pooh at October 7, 2003 at 02:28 PMForlong had a single lapse of judgment. Margo has multiple ones.
Posted by: Freddyboy at October 7, 2003 at 02:34 PMIs Margo real, or did Tim make her up to tease us? I mean, Polly Toynbee, George Moonbat, Robert Fisk et al. - they might be bloody raving bonkers but at least the buggers can spell. Looking at her picture (through my fingers, hiding behind the sofa) I think it's just some snap of a mad bag lady he saw feeding pigeons in the square.
The poor old dear can't even spell her name. Convention insists on a terminal 'T'. Reminds me of the time Jean Harlow was talking to Margot Asquith and kept pronouncing it marGOTT. Finally Madge snaps and says, "no dear, the 'T' is silent, just like in Harlow."
Posted by: David Gillies at October 7, 2003 at 02:43 PMi bet that evil limey prime minister blair is behind the suspicious death of that sky news reporter.
Posted by: rosco p at October 7, 2003 at 04:19 PMDoesn't the stupid cow have a spelling/grammar checker ?
Maybe it fell asleep reading her crap just like everyone else does
I really like the thought of Margo, longing to be in the liberal "no smoking anywhere" camp, fighting a cigarette addiction.
Posted by: Theodopoulos Pherecydes at October 7, 2003 at 09:34 PMThe critical difference between you and Margo, is that Margo actually writes detailed articles, interviews people, and publishes a broad range of views within her web diary. Whereas you Tim are so utterly lazy that you can barely write more than 200 words on the same subject before getting bored and going on to abuse someone else for not thinking like you. The irony is that you - Tim Blair - are one of the best examples of political correctness gone mad.
Posted by: Tim's Pet Hate at October 8, 2003 at 12:43 PM