Charlotte's Web

The MSM has spent the last thirty years dismantling the stoic yet informative NZBC formula and dosing up on tabloid sensation and fripperies. Reality TV, slebrification, native advertising. Instead of encouraging the best out of people, it has pandered to the basest elements of the public psyche.

Now that it has conjured up this ravenous, insatiable consumer of content - with all the lack of scruples that an advertising-led agenda entails - the MSM don't get to whine about the hatemail by-product.

Garbage in, garbage out. If you set the level of debate at grunt level, grunting is all you'll get. Change up or shut up.

Onya for the insight, Deborah Hill-Cone. Rebel without applause.

The Grillo Brand

Friends come and go, enemies accumulate. I've argued friends into enmity over religion, sport and fluoridation, to name a few topics off the top of my head. Seeing how popular the Jeremy Paxton interview of Russell Brand is around the place, I'm preparing to take a hit to the circle in order to triangulate this village idiot in the public square.

Since first encountering the persona of Russell Brand, not a long time ago admittedly, I have considered him a clown. It's as if someone had taken Brit comedian Ross Noble, forced him into a perm and Boy George make-up, and then gave him a wanker transplant.

Maybe it's the born-again addict schtick he waves about the place, giving high functioning dope fiends a bad rap with his disease-ification of joie de vivre. Perhaps it's the humourless earnestness, without the rudimentary acting talent of Brangelina to balance it out a little.

But this most recent bit of theatre goes beyond absurd. Such rants should be taken as seriously as a first year BA student pontificating over Jager shots in the uni pub, with which the appearance bears a striking resemblance.

A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, and Brand knows even less. Strangely, this is a point of pride for him. Ignorance may yet be bliss. In this, he follows Italian politician Grillo, the anti-political politician. Or the Weimar Republic with its splintering political factions. All in all, not a good omen.

Sure, he could do all that boring stuff like reading the details; the sum of our histories, perhaps a bit of his namesake Bertrand Russell. He definitely needs to stay away from Jean-Paul Sartre. You only have to look at South-East Asia's recent past to see where following him leads. Camus at a pinch would help. The Trial Fall is short enough for even Brand's attention span.

No, it must be Revolution, sez him. We must burn the village to save it. Well, Russ, nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of thousand all you'll end up with is a burnt village. A homogenised wasteland, like the Australian outback or Colin Craig's wardrobe.

Never fuck with entropy. The second law of thermodynamics will always win. It will be how things end, not with a bang but with a whimper (literary reference there, Russ).

Destruction is easy. Creation is hard. I wouldn't want to live on a planet ruled by Russell Brand or anything like his vacuous populism. I'd rather be ruled by lizards than amoebas.

The "Do You Know Who I Am?" Defence

One night in Taupo, some twenty years ago, I was charged with drink driving. Both the breath and blood tests showed I was ten percent over the limit. After seeking two legal opinions, I was advised that the law is clear. There is no way to avoid a loss of licence and fine for drink driving. None at all.

No, I couldn't argue that I needed my licence to continue my job. No, I couldn't take advantage of the trial scheme, whereby the police gave warnings to people caught just over the limit. My level was three percent too high. I plead guilty, said my piece to the judge, lost my licence for six months, and paid a fine. I adapted.

So, you can imagine my surprise today to read that, actually, the law is more plastic than previous legal opinions had suggested. One can be twice the legal limit, get off, and have a cone of silence fall over the whole thing as if it never happened.

Unfortunately, one needs to be a worthy Sleb, not a working Pleb, to play this Get Out of Drunk Tank card. Undue hardship can only be begged by people who don't know the meaning of regular hardship.

Just a Gigolo

Mediawatch is fascinating listening this morning, as they dissect the Sky Contra Prostitution Ring and other sleb pimping. The link should be up in an hour or two (time is all screwy today anyway).

This is important stuff. The biggest crime in this country isn't drugs, violence or sex crimes. The greatest crime is the abuse of trust by shysters, scammers, snake oil sales people and con artists on a largely naive and gullible population.

It's the common MO of the recent Auckland ATM scam, the finance companies propped up by comedians, former news readers and rugbyheads (Et tu, Great Uncle Colin?), the mobile loan sharks, Nigerian spammers, zombie computers riddled with virii and backdoors. And so on.

Which is all part of the bigger problem; we all have to bring home the bacon. Even the vegetarians. We all have to feed the monkey. But surely there's a better way to make a living than screwing with your audience's better natures and not being honest with your patter.

Double entry

Should journalists moonlight as prostitutes? ponders this TVNZ story. At least one TVNZ worker says yes.

Sleb Slapping

The following musical interlude is dedicated to Billy Ray Cyrus and his self-inflicted achy-breaky heart:

Coals to Newcastle

Paris does Pot, apparently. More interestingly, she was arrested trying to enter South Africa with some in her possession. Bringing weed to South Africa, a country where marijuana grows wild by the roadside and can be bought at the right petrol stations. It's the single stupidest bust since [unnameable billionaire] was busted bringing a personal cannabis stash into NZ a few years back.

UPDATE: Bravo that bimbo. Charges against Paris Hilton have been dropped. One less victim in the war on drugs. Only a few billion people more to go.