Nail Bingley to the Wall, Baby!!
Even so, they hold the same megaphone as the adults and enjoy perceived credibility owing to membership in the larger world of blog grown-ups. These effete and often-clever “bloggies” are rich in time and toys, but bereft of adult supervision.
Spoiled and undisciplined, they have grabbed the mike and seized the stage, a privilege granted not by years in the trenches, but by virtue of a three-pronged plug and the miracle of WiFi. They play tag team with hyperlinks (“I’ll say you’re important if you’ll say I’m important”), and shriek “Gotcha!” when they catch some weary wage earner in a mistake or oversight. Plenty smart, but lacking in wisdom, they possess the power of a forum, but neither the maturity nor humility that years of experience impose.
Each time I wander into blogdom, I’m reminded of the savage children stranded on an island in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. Without adult supervision, they organize themselves into rival tribes, learn to hunt and kill, and eventually become murderous barbarians in the absence of a civilizing structure.
Kathleen Parker doesn’t like us. She really, really doesn’t like us. Bingley’s big mouth ruins everything for me.
Fun | Mr. Bingley | 
January 5, 2006 2:34 pm
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We can’t silence them, but for civilization’s sake — and the integrity of information by which we all live or die — we can and should ignore them.
I can and will ignore you, you pompous turd.
Why didn’t she mention how good I look in my digital brown shirt?
That was one of the most elitist, stuck-up pieces of crap I have ever read. And what kind of an idiot uses a WORK OF FICTION to prop up a point?
Little does she know that, by using an island which we all know to be inhabited by island goats, she’s only perpetuating the madness. Her bad. Hard to see everything goin’ on down below through the clouds that ring Olympus.
Although I’ve been a blog fan since the beginning, and have written favorably about the value added to journalism and public knowledge thanks to the new “citizen journalist,” I’m also wary of power untempered by restraint and accountability.
This is a member of the MSM? Pot, meet kettle. Kettle, pot.
That a Jayson Blair of the New York Times or a Jack Kelley of USA Today surfaces now and then as plagiarists and fabricators ultimately is testament to the high standards tens of thousands of others strive to uphold each day without recognition. Blair and Kelley are infamous, but they’re also gone.
Katrina cannibalism, the miners tragedy yesterday, NYT breaking national security, making minor events into national news (e.g., the missing bride) ….oh, yeah, those are a REAL testament to a responsible media.
We can’t silence them, but for civilization’s sake — and the integrity of information by which we all live or die — we can and should ignore them.
Funny, I concluded that about the MSM long ago.
What a self-centered wanker.
But if it weren’t for blogs, we wouldn’t know about this
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?061+sum+HB187
trying to be passed by some FREAK in the VA leg who BETTER NOT be Bingley, or I’m kicking some ass.
I love the “we SHOULD ignore them” line the best. Uh, lady, I think I SHOULD read whatever the hell I want, m’kay?
See? See?? Turd – crap – wanker – VA freaks – GOATS!!! Sweet baby Jesus, we’re only proving her point!
::auch:: ::snuffle:: ::blow::
Oh, the humanity…
You know, I’ll bet good money that what really happened is some lefty blogger went after her in a really vicious way and it huwd her widdle feewings so she went in a rage against all blogs.
Now, Emily, not all blogs. I think she said lawyers’ and professors’ blogs were okay, ’cause they be edjamacated. Kinda parallels the Holy Grail theme Bingley’s started with the weather guys.
Oh, God… just look at that smug photo on the byline. You can tell it’s going to be good. The Kathleen Parker Face – someone get Sports Guy on the phone. That’s entertainment!
It is this latter — our new enemies — that interests me most. I don’t mean al-Qaida or Osama bin Laden, but the less visible, insidious enemies of decency, humanity and civility — the angry offspring of narcissism’s quickie marriage to instant gratification.
Yup! We’re worse than the terrorists! And y’all wonder why your industry’s credibility hovers in the used-car-salesman range?
Say what you will about the so-called mainstream media, …
… but we will stick our fingers in our ears, la-la-la-la, and everyone else should ignore you too!
… but no industry agonizes more about how to improve its product, police its own members, and better serve its communities.
Goodness, I just spurted coffee over my monitor and clean across the office. A record, that one. Did you know that each county in New Jersey has its own disciplinary review board for attorney complaints? That the Client Protection Fund awarded over $4,450,000 in compensation for 2004 to defrauded clients? That once disbarred, one can never practice law again in the state? Jayson Blair isn’t “gone,” you nitwit, he’s writing books.
Bloggers persist no matter their contributions or quality, [not true!] though most would have little to occupy their time were the mainstream media to disappear tomorrow. [Or reform, for that matter. Perish the thought!
Some bloggers also offer superb commentary, but most babble, buzz and blurt like caffeinated adolescents competing for the Ritalin generation’s inevitable senior superlative: Most Obsessive-Compulsive.
Well, do you know what happens to the best of the blogs? They get picked up as columns by your industry. Other good ones plug away with loyal readers. The bad ones are dismissed as hacks and eventually die out, such as, just off the top of my head, Margo Kingston. Wasn’t she one of yours, m’dear?
What Golding demonstrated — and what we’re witnessing as the blogosphere’s offspring multiply — is that people tend to abuse power when it is unearned and will bring down others to enhance themselves.
Sounds like an apt description of your column, Ms. Parker.
When a mainstream journalist stumbles, they pile on like so many savages, hoisting his or her head on a bloody stick as Golding’s children did [with] the fly-covered head of a butchered sow.
So, Walter Williams never happened? And by the way, Mapes and Rather didn’t stumble – they lied, with malice aforethought, and were complicit in the forgery of government documents. There’s fact-checking for you.
But we should beware and resist the rest of the ego-gratifying rabble who contribute only snark, sass and destruction.
Oh, unwad thy panties. You looked down on the common man when they sat there and took it from you self-appointed First Drafters of History. Let them read cake! I say, if you’re so much better than the blogosphere, you’ll win out.
We can’t silence them, but for civilization’s sake — and the integrity of information by which we all live or die — we can and should ignore them.
Again, “for civilization’s sake.” Have you noticed that civilization faces a far nastier and more immediate threat than any amount of Howard Stern wannabees pecking away in their parent’s basement? They kill journalists over there, too – one would hope you’d at least have noticed that much.
Now it may fairly be said that my own name isn’t on my blog, but I do give my email address and let people post public replies to anything I write, so it’s not like I’m running from anyone. If I got paid for my byline I’d run that instead of “Nightfly.” Now pass the conch, Ms. Sister.
It’s MINE, I tell you. Have the lovely roast goat.
You roasted a goat? I hope it wasn’t one of Ken’s.
(I wonder if he’s getting sick of the goat jokes yet?)
OK, if I must settle… Ken’s got goats to spare. Are the leftovers next to the bloody head on a pike, or did we move them?