Once again, let's hear from a few Sun readers

Breathless smear merchants on King Street manufacture another "scandal." Hilarity ensues.

And then Sue Ann's readers show their class ...

Once again, time to play ... Let's hear from another Sun reader!

Source here.

Strictly speaking, I have doubts about the authenticity, as this guy can actually spell.

Related posts:

• Electro-Motive: Foreign corporation takes Canadian tax dollars, fucks over Canadian workers | #cdnpoli
• The Sun's effect on our national conversation is obvious, but what about the Globe?
• BCL catches @SueAnnLevy rewriting history, smearing brave firefighters
• #SunMedia and journalistic ethics: another juxtaposition
• Kate's royal ass cheek: #sunmedia triumphs again, @davidakin makes sure we all know about it

The Sun's effect on our national conversation is obvious, but what about the Globe?

It's a straightforward question: what are people talking about? What's capturing their attention and imaginations? Public conversation. Nothing gives you a better sense of a community or a society than gauging what people are talking about. (24/7 on Kim Kardashian? That's got to tell you something.)

It's been one of this little corner's favourite hobby horses for as long as I can remember. Public discourse. National conversation. Provincial. Municipal. Whatever. You want civic ambition, you need to look at the quality of the conversations people are having. (I'm focusing on civic ambition because in a recent piece, the Globe's ideologically reliable urban-affairs curmudgeon Marcus Gee was complaining about the lack thereof. More on that in a minute. )

@cityslikr lights @SueAnnLevy up like a pinball machine

(With an apology to pinball machines everywhere.)

That @cityslikr fella can be wonderfully succinct sometimes. I retweeted this earlier, but it deserves a whole blog post.

Word. If you're ever curious about why so many of our fellow citizens seem ruled by fear, resentment, and ignorance, the Venomous Loser^TM  and her hateful little screeds are a big part of the reason. Sun Media's toxic effect just wouldn't be as toxic without her.

Some years ago, a singer / songwriter / satirist by the name of Tom Lehrer was said to have summed up his musical career thus:

If, after hearing my songs, just one human being is inspired to say something nasty to a friend, or perhaps to strike a loved one, it will all have been worth the while.

He was talking tongue in cheek, of course.

Related posts:

• BCL catches @SueAnnLevy rewriting history, smearing brave firefighters
• @SueAnnLevy in her own words
• Best use of the word "socialist" this month
• Winning back the words: a subversive's work is never done
• #SunMedia and journalistic ethics: another juxtaposition

BCL catches @SueAnnLevy rewriting history, smearing brave firefighters

BigCityLib Strikes Back: In Case You ARE Wondering

Don't know why BCL isn't on the Tweeter, but that's up to him.

In the meantime, seems the Venomous Loser^TM is perfectly happy to use Toronto's firefighters and their taxpayer-funded equipment as a campaign prop ...

Click to view at full size

But, well, you know ... that was then, and this is now.

... one wonders, is it unseemly to point out that the guy has to be there whether there's actually a fire or not, just in case? Just in the cause of raising the tone of civic discourse, instead of pandering to the lizard-brains and all that ...

As BCL writes:

So, no, Sue Ann, the union hasn't been keeping a file on you.  Turns out you were keeping one on yourself. By the way, if you want to theorize on why Sue Ann has gone out of her way to trash T.O. firefighters, well, consider this: their union took her to the Ontario Press Council in 2007 and hosed her down.  

Sue Ann? Time to stop digging, maybe.

Related posts:

• @SueAnnLevy in her own words
• Let's hear from a couple of Sun News Network fans
• Why the liars are winning
• Winning back the words: a subversive's work is never done

#SunMedia and journalistic ethics: another juxtaposition

Although I sometimes wonder: given the mockery that whole "commies in the media" thing inspired, are the trolls at Sun Media really thinking any attention is good attention?

Then again, maybe I'm overthinking. These are the people whose readers do happy dances at the news of Jack Layton's cancer, after all.

Related posts:

• Kate's royal ass cheek: #sunmedia triumphs again, @davidakin makes sure we all know about it
• Sun Media leaves another mess on the sidewalk
• A Sun reader speaks
• Another Sun reader speaks
• More Sun readers speak ...
• Let's hear from another Sun reader ...

Kate's royal ass cheek: #sunmedia triumphs again, @davidakin makes sure we all know about it

Sad, isn't it. When this is what occupies our imaginations and dominates public discourse, is it any wonder that so many people don't bother to take the responsibilities of citizenship seriously? Look at the energy it's consuming, for Chrissakes.  (Yeah, I know. Mea culpa. Now piss off.)

The capacity for critical thought - how do we build it?

Just as we wind down the first half of 2011 in preparation for Canada Day, three disparate blog posts are jumping out at me:

• At Sixth Estate, Government of Canada Issues Statement Opposing the Alphabet
• At Politics and its Discontents, Sun News Network – Full of Sound And Fury, Signifying Nothing
• At Porcupine Blog, The Hegemony of Authoritarian Ideology and the Vancouver Hockey Riot

A question for @davidakin

Word is, you're supposed to be a respected journalist.

OK then. Hypothetical question for you.

A little rhetorical aikido for the slimebags at Sun Media

At least I think that's the appropriate analogy. As I understand it, it's one of the gentler martial arts, based on redirecting your opponent's attack and turning the energy back upon him, rather than meeting it head-on.

Just another sleaze job from the Toronto Police

The source of Sun Media's latest steaming pile is an unnamed, retired cop.

Poor guy. What with all the unprovoked assaults on handcuffed prisoners, threats of gang rape, and the laff riot his pals must have enjoyed when they ripped a guy's prosthetic leg off and ordered him to hop into the paddy wagon, he must have been feeling left out.

Stay classy, guys.

Related posts:

• What are we paying these people for?
• The Blue Wall is a threat to public safety
• Cops with cameras, or cops on camera? A modest proposal

Coyne posts the best tweet of the election

... and in the process, delivers an unanswerable indictment of the depths to which public discourse has been allowed to sink.

Related posts:

• Let's hear from a couple of Sun News Network fans
• @SueAnnLevy in her own words
• Elizabeth May excluded? What Coyne said
• More Sun readers speak ...
• Let's hear from another Sun reader ...

Let's hear from a couple of Sun News Network fans

Because really, it's not fair of me to single out Sun readers.

Especially now that there's a TV network for them.

@SueAnnLevy in her own words

What's that website again? Blogging Tories in Their Own Words?

(I have a slight problem with the appropriation of voice implicit in the use of the term "Tories" in this context, but I'll let that go for now.)

As long as we're asking quis custodiet ipsos custodes ...

I know, I know, it's Sunday night and people just want to wind down the weekend and fall asleep in front of the Golden Globes and for chrissakes, can't you just give it a rest already?

Yeah, well. Michael Geist flagged this last week, and pogge and Jymn have picked up on it, but it bears more than a little emphasis. The Star and the Globe seem to think it's important too.

Broadcasting, media and internet policy: the confluence of the absurd

This is where we juxtapose:

Police budgets, and how a phony narrative gets manufactured

Earlier this week, the Star ran an essay in which the best mayor Toronto's had in the last half-century argues that there's plenty of wasteful spending in the police budget, and that if the Ford regime is serious about trimming fat and stopping the gravy train, there's lots of room to cut there.

More flying monkeys, Smithers!

Yeah, well.

Never thought I'd be linking to both the Stun and the Putz approvingly, but there it is.

Why the liars are winning

Couple of days ago, Rick Perlstein published an essay on The Daily Beast that sets out, in succinct and convincing terms, one of the most important reasons that our friends to the south are in such trouble.

I'm not alone in lamenting the debasement and vulgarization of civil discourse and the attendant coarsening of political culture, but Perlstein's got one of the most influential and worrisome dynamics down pat: the far-right crazies, teabaggers and Palinbots lie their asses off, and no one – not the Obama administration, the Democratic establishment, the Villagers nor the "lamestream media" – will call them on it.

Crazed terrorist threatens to down aircraft in suicide attack

Gosh darn those dirty brown people with funny names!

Terrified passengers on a London-bound flight froze in their seats as a crazed man ran through the aisle of the Qantas jet screaming: 'You will all die!' 

Praying and yelling in a foreign language, the man threatened to kill himself and the passengers on the fully-laden jet several hours after it took off from Melbourne to fly to London via Hong Kong. 

Flight attendants managed to jump on the man and restrain him as he threatened to open an emergency exit door, shouting: 'It is God's will'.

From the Daily Mail.

Wow. So why isn't the media going apeshit over this? This is Fox News / Sun Media / National Putz whacking material, for Chrissakes.

Oh. Apparently he was an Israeli, and the foreign language was Hebrew.

Never mind.

What's that you're saying? Bias? In the lamestream media? Facts inconveniently deviating from the approved narrative? 

Sorry, I'm just not understanding you. Your lips are moving, but I can't hear what you're saying.

(Big h/t to Dr. Dawg, Cathie from Canada and ootpoot.)