We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Dorian Lynskey in The Guardian has written about the blogosphere in a way that had me grinning by the end of the first paragraph…
I’d love to see his reaction to the Guardian arts blog, where the dynamic often suggests that the argument has spilled out of the crowded bar and escalated into a punchup in the car park.
Yes, the comment sections of blogs, and indeed blog articles themselves, can get a bit like that at times. Although he is writing about the ‘Arts’ blogosphere, some of what he observes also pertains to the political and punditry blogosphere… and some does not, which I also find quite interesting.
However where I think Lynskey is not quite correct is where he writes…
Many of the people who post [comments] on blogs appear to be annoyed not by what the writers say so much as the fact that they’re in a position to say it. You can spot this type because they write things like : “You’ve only written this to provoke a reaction.” Or: “Why did you even write this? What a waste of time.” As if writing to complain about a waste of time were not, in fact, a bigger waste of time. Or, my favourite: “Typical Guardian.” Perhaps they also post on the website of Practical Caravan magazine, complaining: “Typical Practical Caravan. So caravancentric.”
No, not really, I do not think people care that Lynskey is in a position to say what he says. I think what he is observing here is not resentment that he has a gig writing for the ‘Grauniad’ but rather a change in the culture regarding the whole journalistic profession.
People have realised that whilst they may not be journalists, they no longer need to be one in order to editorialise the news. In short, journalism is no longer an ‘institution’, it is just ‘something people with opinions do’. Some people get paid for it and other do it for free. In a sense, we are the journalists now in that we are the ones keeping journals of our opinions on the outrage-of-the-day. People who work for newspapers might be better described as ‘newspaper men’, many of whom are formatting commoditised information, or as ‘reporters’ if they are collecting information to be formatted. The editorialising role is something that the mainstream media has now largely lost their lock on.
If the Guardian tells me car bomb has gone off in Baghdad or a British minister has resigned, I believe them. However I do not need the Guardian to tell me what the significance of that is as the low-down regarding what was behind said ministerial skulduggery is probably better and fresher on Guido Fawkes.
However he is quite correct that criticising a Guardian article in the Guardian’s own comment section for being a ‘typical Guardian article’ is rather bizarre. What were they expecting? It is all the stranger as people in the UK have the advantage that most clear eyed British journalists make little pretence that their newspaper is not partisan (unlike in the USA when the preposterous myth of journalistic impartiality persists), by which I mean each paper has an identifiable political editorial line that colours everything it does… people understand that the Guardian is a left wing statist newspaper, the Telegraph is a right wing statist newspaper with occasional classical liberal pretensions, the Independent is the Al Qaeda House Journal, etc. etc.. Just as people do not read Samizdata and expect to be confronted with a paean to the NHS (that is the Guardian’s job), they should not expect to read an article in the Guardian calling for an end to state education (that is our job).
Nevertheless, love it or loath it (one guess), the Guardian has always been far and away the most internet savvy newspaper and Lynskey seems to have a much better grasp of what blogging is about than the irascible Keith Waterhouse.
For those of you who have been following the story of the Pakistan born ex-Muslim blogger ‘Isaac Schrödinger’ who has been seeking asylum in Canada, I am delighted to report a very happy ending.
Michael Totten has written a couple very interesting articles called Hezbollah’s Putsch and Hezbollah’s Christian Allies.
Well worth checking out as you just do not see stuff like this in the mainstream media all too often. Also consider dropping your mouse on his PayPal donations button to support his excellent international reportage.
From all of us at Samizdata, to all of you, our loyal readers and commenters, a very Merry Christmas!
A large contingent of Samizdatistas were seen making merry and getting blotto at the party of a certain Reuters journalist tonight. As Christmas party season is in full cry, blogging may be a bit… sporadic… over the next few days.
Apologies for not flagging up sooner that I recently had a recorded conversation about Samizdata with Perry de Havilland. It took me over a week to edit the thing, by which I mean over a week to get around to stitching the two chunks it happened in together (I find everything involving computers to be hard until I know how to do it). And after posting about it on my blog, it has taken me another two days to mention it here. I had a busy weekend. But the mills of Samizdata grind small, and slowly. A week and a half’s delay will make no huge difference to the big picture, or to the meta-context as Perry likes to call it.
Anyway, click here to have a listen. It lasts about forty minutes.
Our conversation reminded me of something I first heard myself say to Madsen Pirie a long time ago, in the old Alternative Bookshop. What will this achieve? – said Madsen, waving some pamphlet I had just done in my face. I replied: “In the short run, nothing. In the long run, everything.” Samizdata is like that.
Jackie D liked it too.
Today, assuming the plan goes according to plan, I will be doing another of these things, with Alex Singleton, about… Gilbert and Sullivan. There is more to life than what governments do.
Hosting company ‘Watching America’ are currently under a sustained (two days and counting) denial-of-service attack and as a result various blogs may be hard or impossible to access as a result. Consider this a public service announcement. Methinks some lynchings are in order.
I had the pleasure of meeting U.S. blogger Stephen Green, of the excellently entitled Vodkapundit, a few months ago at a party in London. Stephen has been ill, lost a lot of weight, and I must say I got quite concerned when he stopped posting. He now explains what has been going on. It looks as if the fella is going to be all right, which is terrific news for him and his wife and child. Feel free to nip over to his site and give him your best wishes.
I am looking forward to the Colorado Scribe posting up more of those cocktail recipes again. Mine’s a gin and tonic.
Steve Edwards has administered a particularly welcome hatchet job on critical aspects of the ostensibly benevolent, world government-loving Bahá’í religion. Check the comments – the Bahá’í faithful have piled in.
I can not have been the only blog-reader who was struck last week by the difference between this from Iain Dale:
The Browns must be shattered, particularly after the death of their daughter. Things like this bring politics into perspective and make some of the silly political games we all indulge in look absolutely pathetic. I am sure every single reader of this blog would want to put political differences aside and express their good wishes to the Brown family.
And this from Guido:
Now call Guido cynical if you will, but on the day the Charity Commissioners announce their intentions, and the Telegraph articles show the press chase has begun, we learn from a deftly placed story in the government’s favourite mouthpiece, The Sun, that tragically Gordon’s son has cystic fibrosis. A good day to front-page the tragic news?
Because yes, it would seem that there is some funding scandal surrounding Mr Brown which is now coming to the boil.
I think Guido wins. He does not deny the tragicness of the story. But, he notes the timing of the telling of it. He adds something. It is the full page spread in the Sun, which Guido reproduces, that clinches it for me.
And in the unlikely event that it was coincidence, then I am afraid that this is not the kind of benefit of the doubt that most of us are any longer prepared to give to this government.
Blogs and other internet sites should be covered by a voluntary code of practice similar to that for newspapers in the UK, a conference has been told. Press Complaints Commission director Tim Toulmin said he opposed government regulation of the internet, saying it should a place “in which views bloom”. But unless there was a voluntary code of conduct there would be no form of redress for people angered at content.
– BBC
It is extraordinary how people opine without understanding the subject. It seems like Mr. Toulmin understand nothing whatsoever about the internet. There is indeed a “form of redress for people angered at content” on blogs available and that is… blogs. It is extremely simple: go to blogger.com, spend about five minutes doing the ‘three easy steps’ and then start posting your rebuttals on your own damn blog.
As for a voluntary code of conduct… I invite Tim Toulmin to ask his lawyer to write one down on a piece of paper, roll the document up tightly and then stick it wherever his lawyer’s imagination and Mr. Toulmin complacency will allow. I look forward to being told off for that remark when Tim Toulmin sets up his own blog.
For another similar view to mine, see here.
I particularly like it when blogging is being done, or is about to be done, by people whom I know quite well. And my friend Helen Evans has just this very day started a blog about nursing, called the Nurses For Reform blog.
That said, the prose style so far is rather corporate and armour-plated for my taste. However, despite the rather baffling word “contestability” – which is presumably some kind of Blairite code-word, for something or other – I think it is reasonably clear what is intended by the following:
NFR rejects bland egalitarianism in favour of contestability. Above all else we believe that greater partnership with the private sector is to be actively welcomed and that this sector’s contributions are good news for patients and healthcare professionals alike.
That suggests to me something quite like free market medicine, and of course I am totally for that. This next bit is definitely about free market medicine:
NFR believes in fundamental change. It believes that only by putting patients and consumers interests first will healthcare improve. It is only when healthcare is opened up to real consumers and trusted brands that nurses will find themselves working in a sustainable environment and with the incentives, resources and encouragement to deliver a responsive, popular and truly high quality service.
This says stuff I agree with, but in the manner of a corporate mission statement, and I loath and detest nearly every corporate mission statement that I have ever encountered.
Wouldn’t it be fun one day to read one of these things starting with something like: “We believe only in superficial change. Fundamentally, things should stay pretty much as they are.” And how about someone just occasionally admitting that he aims to supply an “unresponsive, unpopular” product or service? Many splendid tradespersons do just that and are richly rewarded.
However, since this is a corporate mission statement, I really ought not to carp. And since this is medicine and nursing care in Britain that is being talked about, well, I admit it, I do believe in “fundamental change”. Nor can I reasonably object to the ambition that nurses should work, if at all possible, in a “sustainable environment”, nor to them delivering a “responsive, popular and truly high quality service”.
To be more serious, I have quite often heard Helen Evans say, in the plainest of English, that one of the many problems of Britain’s National Health Service is that its nurses do not now have a proper career path in front of them. As soon as they get really good at their job, they tend to leave. The NHS has lost many of what would now be its NCOs, so to speak, good and experienced senior nurses being to hospitals what good and experienced sergeants are to armies. And where have they all gone? To get married, or to the private sector.
When the postings at this new blog get more specific and personal, as I am sure many of them will, I will surely read them with interest and pleasure. There will be more links from here to there in the future, I promise you.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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