5 - # of Straya threads or # of times Melbourne has been crowned world's best city

[Axver]

Comments sections, no matter how they are designed, are detritus. I used to write for The Conversation, but was quickly put off because I thought it hypocritical to write for a site so named when I was unwilling to engage in discussions with commenters.

Also they don't pay. Fuck that, actual newspapers will pay me.

Not that I've written for a paper for a while. But I should.

 

[Kieran McConville]

Well some blogs - some, I stress, some - are relatively high class in the comments section. But it depends on the audience I suppose. Also those communities police themselves. The 'Conversation' or The Guardian or New Matilda: those aren't communities at all.

 

[cobl04]

The Guardian has theirs set to top comment and they're all usually very good.


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference

 

[Kieran McConville]

I dare you to go below the 'top comment'. They're not very good at all. Although in some cases better than the article. The 'comment is free' portion of The Guardian is cynical clickbait of the lowest strain.

 

[cobl04]

Eric Abetz Thinks It’s Ok To Use The Word “Negro” Because Martin Luther King Said It

 

[cobl04]

Proof that it isn't just right-wing commentators like Devine or Kenny or Bolt or whoever that are fucking idiots:

 

[Vlad n U 2]

I don't mind Van Badham but that is a terrible headline. I was a little sympathetic to Brand in the past but especially after he decided to support the UK Greens, then switching to supporting the hardly leftwing Ed Milliband only days later - that was enough to suggest he's really got no idea.

 

[Kieran McConville]

Ah yes, Russell. Mr hipster Revolution, Mr don't-vote, Mr pink-Himalayan-rock-salt. He is a perfect waste of space.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

It's somewhat frustrating to see how anyone associated with Jeremy Corbyn has been wildly lambasted in the UK press. In recent days it has been Guardian columnist Seumas Milne simply for joining Corbyn's team. It's feral.

And it wouldn't be any different if the same was happening here.

 

[Kieran McConville]

Corbyn is outside the narrative frame, that's all. Even the entire parliamentary party hate him. The guy's on a hiding to nothing except that he has the support of the paying membership, and maybe some good will come out of his time in the chair, in terms of new candidate preselections.

 

[cobl04]

I love Himalayan pink salt. Fuck off.

 

[Kieran McConville]

Thinking of getting a 'Bugger Off, We're Full' tattoo right on my face; just ironically, mind.

 

[Axver]

Department backs school over national anthem furore

Can we also excuse ourselves if we think the anthem's a bit shit?

I used to always mumble God Defend New Zealand during assemblies as my own act of spite towards Advance Australia Fair, in no small part because I found the very concept of singing the anthem at every assembly to be really creepy and jingoistic. We sang the Kiwi anthem only a handful of times at my primary school in New Zealand, on really important occasions.

 

[cobl04]

I think there shouldn't even be a fucking discussion. It is there, plain as fucking day that the school was paying attention to this Islam month where they don't celebrate or sing joyous songs or whatever. (I know you're having a wry laugh, it's just the first I saw of this was on HS on FB so it was obviously framed in a "MUSLEM Y U NO ASSIMILATE" way and ruined my day)

 

[Axver]

I seriously don't fucking get why we even sing the anthem at school assemblies.

I cannot even begin to describe how creepy I find the pledge of allegiance in the US.

I didn't grow up any less a Kiwi because we rarely sang the anthem. If anything I developed that identity more organically, and thus internalised it more strongly.

 

[Kieran McConville]

We never sang the national anthem when I was going to school. I mean, obviously it existed, but it wasn't really a thing.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

http://www.buzzfeed.com/bradesposito/fungbunger-the-interview?utm_term=.qk0AQNxl0#.ic16XxQlL

Monumental. Australia's answer to dril.

 

[liamcool]

I have a reasonably strong Irish national identity, and I don't know what the anthem is.

 

[Kieran McConville]

The only thing more depressing than singing Advance Australia Fair is standing in silence while a tinny recording of it by a forgotten 1970s soprano plays on a portable cassette player.

Could be worse though, we could be standing in silence for John Williamson's 'Hey True Blue', or the unofficial 1990s attempt at an anthem 'I Am, You Are, We Are Australian'.

 

[cobl04]

http://www.buzzfeed.com/bradesposito/fungbunger-the-interview?utm_term=.qk0AQNxl0#.ic16XxQlL

Monumental. Australia's answer to dril.

Thanks for the late news Sandra Sully

 

[cobl04]

I fear that interview will now ruin one of the funniest Aus accounts in history. I hope not.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

I've known about this account for months, I just can't believe Buzzfeed legitimately interviewed him.

 

[cobl04]

5 - # of Straya threads or # of times Melbourne has been crowned world's best...

Started here [tweet]657827686744592384[/tweet]


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference

 

[Vlad n U 2]

Journalism in 2015.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

Kyrgyzstan reported as option to resettle refugees from Nauru and Manus | Australia news | The Guardian

It's at the point where Dutton is spinning a world globe and touching any random point on it to establish a new "option".

 

[Axver]

Kyrgyzstan reported as option to resettle refugees from Nauru and Manus | Australia news | The Guardian

It's at the point where Dutton is spinning a world globe and touching any random point on it to establish a new "option".

Dutton closes his eyes, spins a globe, stops it with his finger, and opens his eyes to find he's landed on...

...Australia.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

More specifically, his finger has landed on Canberra.

Solution: House the refugees in parliament house.

 

[Kieran McConville]

I read an awesome semi-satirical novel by Andrew Mcgahan some years ago called 'Underground'. In this novel, a John-Howard-esque prime minister presided over a frightened, authoritarian polity, and, less publicly, a fenced-off Canberra where high level leaders from around the world, including Osama Bin Laden, met secretly to conduct their affairs. They could do this because Canberra had ostensibly been nuked by terrorists and was, so the general public believed, a radioactive hole in the ground.

 

[Axver]

Oh! I remembered something I meant to post in here.

When I was in Bordertown on Monday waiting for my train, there was one other passenger and she was a nice, chatty local woman. We got on well and passed the time talking about various things. There was one point of the conversation, though, that made me realise how batshit some parts of Aussie public discourse can be.

She observed the station had been kept free of graffiti. I observed that it seemed like a peaceful, quiet town that wouldn't have serious problems with graffiti. She replied that I'd be surprised, that there were "a lot of problems with drugs and alcohol, there's darkness here - we even have ISIS in the town."

We even have ISIS in the town.

Border-fucking-town.

(I just let it go and kept talking about the nicer parts of the local community, because what else are you meant to do?)

 

[Kieran McConville]

Where does, ISIS, ah, live, in this town?

And why would ISIS be bothering with graffiti and drugs? The crazy, it burns.