Post race hysteria: guilt by association

It's all he says, she says bitchy blogger bullshit based on mutual techno-incompetence. These two detested and despised each other at Uni and that has mellowed over the years to contempt and hate; but since they are forcing me to participate in their latest round of gouging and scratching I'll have to deal with it here and now (instead of yesterday when I was going to deal with it... before I realised that watching Russian porn and listening to Nigerian Afro-funk would be a more enjoyable way to spend the evening analysing the Auckland local body election results would be a more productive use of precious time and bandwidth).

If CK had looked at the note at the top of the blog's archives section (pictured here for those RSS parasites that never visit the url) she would have seen that posts prior to July 2006 that have the author as "Bomber" are in fact by me - unless marked otherwise. This is because MB is to blog administration what Allan Hubbard is to prudent lending. When he took over the admin of my blog as the acting editor he made a terrible and irrevocable error for which I should never have forgiven him: he changed my blog author name to "Bomber" so that he could use it to post in his own right (up until then I had posted his material as guest posts) and so everything I had posted - prior to my year up Her Majesty's arse - is now under "Bomber". Honestly, it's the last time I get sent to prison and leave him in charge :)

Thus the confusion over who posted what and when.

So it isn't really CK's fault for not having read a small piece of text in the blog's sidebar and just taking the listed author at face value - quite forgivable. And it isn't really MB's fault either for being technically dyslexic and having effectively hijacked my 2005-2006 posts because it was in order to keep the blog going during a crisis and was a favour for which I will always be grateful. But these two - have I mentioned this at all? - fucking hate each other. So neither one is going to concede anything to the other and they aren't going to wait to walk out their twenty paces before turning and firing - they've each taken half a step and then started strangling each other. That's why we love them. Dearly.

At it hammer:- and tong:Grab the extra large popcorn it's a double feature.

They aren't explaining things clearly: partly because they are both techno-spastic and are not articulating the pertinent details, but mainly it's because - and I may have touched on this before - they would rather throttle each other.

To be fair to CK she says in an update:
...if you posted the comments...
— That's an if. Well MB didn't and I can confirm it and therefore her conclusion about MB "condoning" it is invalid. The general remark about multi-author blogging:
...you have to accept each others work
— is more closer to the mark.

CK was also a columnist for some time for the Dom-Post (I think it was) and she would have had to accept appearing in a publication that also included content from the odd pinko and other distasteful personages to her. She doesn't need to own their writing - just as I didn't need to own the TV columns of the alternating writer (whose work I grew to dislike) when I contributed to the Sunday Star-Times in the 90s. "Condone" is too strong, but "accept" or tolerate is a better way to describe the situation. It all depends on the editorial policy of the blog and all bloggers are free to leave if the association with the other authors is damaging to their brand. As MB pointed out in his update CK's association with Cam Slater lasted barely more than a day. That must have been some magnitude of damage.

So it hangs on what your associates write and the overall tenor it creates as to whether you want to stick around or not.

I try to push the limits and so some of what I post will be deliberately skirting along the edge of what is an acceptable form of public discourse. I did that at Craccum, the SST, Rip it Up and other gigs on TV and radio (incl the "How the Fuck are you Cunt" Australian tourism ad spoof on Radio Live one night that had MB hovering over the dump button for a good 30 sec or so as I said it each time in a thick Aussie drawl getting closer and closer to being fully intelligible), but I don't think I've ever gone off the deep end so badly on the blog that MB or Phoebe - or Ben back in the day - has seriously wanted to jump off. The post CK complains about is here. If it doesn't work (and I can confirm that CK is not alone in having trouble with the direct link) go to the November 2005 section of the archives in the sidebar to view one of my "severely vile pieces about Chinese people, mocking Pansy Wong's accent for example."

Here is what CK says:------------------------
Let me proceed here in Bomber's [my] words:

The simple fact is she speaks shocking English and ridicule might be the last remaining tool to get her to lift her game. If you want to know what the English language sounds like when it's being murdered it's not Murray Mexted - it's Pansy Wong.

It's not just her accent - it is that she doesn't indicate plurals, she can't pronounce common English language sounds, she leaves words out etc. That goes way beyond accent. She has not MASTERED the language - and yet there she is in parliament, where the primary method of communication is speech, hurting people's ears.

You mean she doesn't speak talk like a "New Zealander" Bomber [me] ? Because I can understand her. Yes, it takes a little concentration, but so does it when I listen to the rough speaking, mumbling Pita Sharples or any Pacific Islander who hasn't refined a "Noo Zoolund" accent.

But because we are talking a Chinese lady here and more pertinently from a centre-right political party, she gets no protection from the hand-wringers after this abuse from their darling in the media, Bomber.

On Paul Henry deeming the current G-G not enough of a New Zealander we get this from Bomber :

Anand was was born and raised in Auckland for fucks sakes, it's Paul Henry's own ignorance he is illuminating the airwaves with for considering someone not white enough for his liking could not possibly be a NZer.

Fine. But not fine when Tim and yourself have made Pansy Wong's accent a topic of cheeky ridicule over the years because she speaks with a heavy Chinese accent that like her skin and family tree, she just cannot leave behind.
------------------------

As true today as five years ago. A timeless blog post which I thank CK for bringing to my attention. Pansy Wong makes fun of her own accent too, but that is no reason to excuse it. She moved to NZ at a fairly young age - she's lived here as long as I have and has had every opportunity to learn to speak clearly. It is a skill and something one learns and practices - and so it isn't at all like skin or genealogy. That analogy is totally false. If she had arrived here only three or four years ago as a middle-aged immigrant then it would be understandable why she sounds the way she does, but that's far from the case. She just isn't trying and people have low expectations and haven't bothered to correct her - so we have this ghastly mangled Pansy-speak (as I believe she calls it). Someone pulled me up last year for using "of" when I mean "have" - I would like to have ended that bad habit in less than 36 years - the time Ms Wong has spent living in NZ.

She goes on:

Pot, kettle, slack, chaps. Can't wait to hear the debate from Citizen A tonight as Tim, Bomber and David Slack talk "Paul Henry and TVNZ's response" where no doubt Tim and Bomber will claim by inference their own sainthood in the race relations area.

I can't remember precisely how saintly I or MB claimed to be in contrast to the now resigned Paul Henry, but I think CK may find it a little less horridly politically correct than what she has assumed. There will be a You Tube of it out soon.

Meanwhile...