Posts by Andre Alessi
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But not a celebrity? Why not? Why should they be treated differently to someone who did the same thing who was, say, a bus driver?
If a bus driver is convicted of a minor offence, his passengers aren't going to connect a three line story in the court pages with the guy driving their bus, so he isn't going to be unfairly impacted by its publication. Most of the embarrassment he faces will be confined to his social circle. His private misdeeds are effectively cordoned off from his public employment.
A celebrity's social circle is, on the other hand, defined as anyone who knows who they are. Most celebrities actually make money from being known by a wide number of people-that's how they get people to consume their art and come to their shows. The distinction between what they do in private and what their job is vanishes-so publication of a minor offence is going to have a significant impact on their ability to do their job, and potentially impact their future earnings in a major way.
The two situations just aren't comparable, any more than it would be comparable to start publishing the names of children who go through the youth court just because we do so for adults. Context matters in a fundamental way.
Besides, a bus driver won't make front page news for things that a celebrity will.
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Oh lord. Now the Herald has thrown it to Your Views and vox pops.
I can't wait for them to start soliciting jokes about it on Sideswipe.
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I just don't get why this isn't the year's biggest story in America.
Because America needs its cult of dead heroes. It needs figureheads that can't talk back to weigh down political decisions and make any criticism of them "tasteless" and "unpatriotic". Questioning whether all those people needed to die on 9/11 is akin to wondering whether young soldiers who die in Iraq and Afghanistan needed to die. It strikes too close to the bone, requires too much self-reflection and self-criticism.
This isn't a uniquely American trait, though the fetishization of those who die violently is almost as strong in America as it is in many dictatorships. It's one of the few features of American culture that is scary and troubling, which is what makes it all the more distressing.
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Democratic process should be a priviledge extended to competent members of society (like those with an IQ of at least, say, 80). Which would mean 60% wouldn't even be allowed to vote. I bet NZ would be a real nice place...
As much as I allow myself to despair from time to time, if the smart can't convince the stupid that some ideas are better than others then they're actually not all that "smart" at all.
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May I suggest you wear knee pads, those alleyways can play havoc on your trousers.
I don't suppose anyone would have a lead on where I could buy a nice pair of chaps? The leather kind.
(OK, that one really is unrecoverable.)
Anyway, I think that this turn in the conversation brings up one of the disturbing double standards of media coverage of celebrities: without intending to excuse said nameless individual for said nameless act, I can guarantee you that the media would be far less interested in this if it wasn't a "sexual offence".
Imagine a celebrity busted for fraud in the course of trying to obtain a mortgage-I can practically hear the yawns from the Herald editorial team from here. Not to mention the fact that we as a society simply care less about some crimes than about others (in ways unrelated to the seriousness with which our legal system treats these offences.) Not to beat a dead horse, but this really is all about titillation-the reporters aren't for a moment trying to cover this story to help out the victim, they just want a juicy story.
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Because getting consensual blowjobs in alleyways is the norm.
Not yet, but I'm willing to put my body on the line to make it so.
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Andre: Poe's Law.
Ooooh, formulae! Thanks!
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Apparently several polls have called for Volgograd's name to be reverted back to Shtalingrad, but so far no action has been taken! This is the kind of horror Yulia fled.
Fixed that for you.
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The line between satire and serious is getting thinner each day.
Further evidence that my theory that we live in a Post-Irony Age: take any statement made or disseminated on the Internet, and no matter whether or not the individual making said statement was joking, you can be sure that someone somewhere is happy making the same statement completely seriously.
It's the logical extension of Rule 34.
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Crime writer Dick Francis is also a "family business" with his son, Felix co-authoring them these days, but is acknowledged as such. Apparently Dick had been doing it for a while, his wife used to help write them from the 1960s, not sure if she got credit, though.
I've always been impressed with the bravado of V.C. Andrews' publisher, who kept the fact of her death quiet for years, and simply engaged a ghost writer (pun most definitely intended) to keep churning out the books.