Maverick experiment in ‘free-speech’ ends desultorily
With sadness, this blog now reports that Harry Heidelberg’s club chaos (a.k.a., kramgasse, sydneysphere, etc.) has closed.
Well, we think it has closed. Actually, we’re fairly certain it has closed. Hang on... nah, it’s definitely closed.
This blog refutes — unequivocally and categorically (just for good measure) — any suggestion or implication of any part in the demise of this maverick experiment in free-speech that has ended so desultorily.
Oddly enough, it may be remarked, the maverick free-speech experiment has ended — at least, we’re fairly certain it has actually and palpably ended — with calls of “p*ss off” and threats of censorship to known groups from the known blogmeister.
Lots of fun was had by some at the expense of some, and then by others at the expense of some others — but mostly by just one, who now chooses to fold.
At the end of the day, however, the fat lady has sung, the ducks have come home to roost, before going to water, the curtain has downed, the rhetoric faded, the dream dispelled, the wretched of the earth arisen, the blurb has blahhed ... um ... and the baton of the chimeric free-speech ideal has been passed on to...
To...?
UPDATE
In other bloggery ‘news’, Damian Lataan again has featured on Tim Blair’s blog, apparently courtesy of a contributor calling himself Eliot R.
(Suggestion to Lataan: Get the Adsense happening now, immediately, before the blairbots descend and the ‘charming’ begins.)
Perhaps a long shot, but one wonders if Eliot R. is one and the same Eliot Ramsey, the prolific contributor to Webdiary who’s recently been ‘granted’ a furlough until St Patrick’s Day by the Webdiary moderator(s). Nice to see Mr R. isn’t allowing himself to go soft during his downtime.
And it’s especially nice to see current and former Webdiary contributors visiting each other’s blogs, stimulating debate, cross-fertilising ideas with their own brand of fertiliser, advancing vendettas, etc.
The attractions and wonders of bloggery are manifold. I keep meaning to leave, but how could one leave all this?
Labels: blogging, useless information
posted by Jacob A. Stam at 2/17/2008 12:25:00 AM
10 Comments:
Known groups? Perhaps an Ilk?
The blogger that cried closed!! too often has....closed. After all the statements to that effect the closure - for the time being - is in effect.
Bat+ball=home
Perhaps it may re-open each Friday for Wolf Friday wherein the owner will threaten to do something, sometime, somewhere - perhaps
Just on which, where is Jay White? His pasty white arse needs seeing in Martin Placxe as I recall.
Wolf Friday could be quite apt - he'll huff and he'll puff...
In the (ahem) closing comment, you've graduated from being "relentlessly partisan", to being in a perpetual state of "partisan frenzy".
Talk about effing projection!!!
Note that, when HH does it, it becomes "performance art". I guess performance artist sounds nicer than bullshit artist.
Meanwhile, I must pester myself to come up with some halfway decent content for this little site, rather than encouraging this rubbish.
As an experiment in free speech it was a monumental failure. I stuck to that concept for a long time and I am not sure that any good ever came of it. Certainly a lot of bad did. That said, I don't agree with say the Webdiary model of blog either. At the end of it all, I think I just don't like the medium. It's tedious.
I lost interest a long time ago with fewer comments and rarely a piece. It became all to predictable, particularly on Australian politics at the end of the Howard era.
Tis true I have tried to close the blog many times and have failed. The reason I have failed in the past is that I leave a thread open and people invariably come back. The reason I leave something open is to allow people a last word.....but then of course one last word is never enough and the cycle starts over again.
That blog won't be missed. Not by me or anyone else. It was mainly awful. Bat + ball = home, indeed.
It may have continued on for longer if this ilk had not helped with its rapid demise.
Thank you and good afternoon.
Jacob, the reality is I had a whole list of criticisms of the Howard government. I disagreed consistently over years re:
1. Asylum seekers;
2. Education;
3. Republic;
4. Reconciliation; and
5. etc etc
I had an ability to distinguish issue by issue within the context of being a Liberal overall. That is entirely different to a person who doesn't distinguish between issues and is a relentless partisan following the party line on each and every topic.
But let's just agree to disagree for I have grown weary of all this garbage. I have zero tolerance for such discussion these days.
Zero tolerance, zero respect and zero interest.
Mind numbingly boring stuff.
Auf wie.
Oh and well one for "encouraging this rubbish".
Well done indeed.
Which closing comment? I did not check it before closure.
Good afternoon HH. It was fun at times: aspects will be missed.
If "partisan frenzy" is correct then that amply illustrates that which will not be missed: the ridicule and abuse of those you disagree with and the much worked on aloof "don't give a rats" about others attitude that demeans an otherwise intelligent individual.
But it was, for the most part, fun and I appreciated the author status.
Thank you Father Park.
Good afternoon and good luck.
I think I'll go for a walk.
With that, I disappear off into the ether.
I'm opening a beer window in remberance.
Back in a few hours.
My piece for WD has really excited furious debate. Perhas it is a little too arcane a subject??!!
Oh sure, Harry, you disagreed consistently with some aspects of Coalition policy, it's copiously documented at WD.
Not forgetting your contribution in NHJ!, which you've alternately embraced and repudiated, etc. I know, and will save you retyping it again (coz I'm weary of hearing it), that your recoil from NHJ was due to the irrational "Howard Hate" thing. You probably have a point there, but you rode that wave yourself in your own media-tart way.
Now, what I've been saying for many moons is that the supposed internal 'disquiet' within the party signally failed to translate into anything substantial at the branch and much less the party room level.
Where have you and your ilk been all those years?
Slutting around the blogosphere defending your winning Howard juggernaut no matter who, no matter what, that's where!!
You guys failed your man and your party with your triumphalism and complacency. I've said time and again that a Howard (or successor) Government needn't be such a bad thing if you people on the inside (or who claim to be such) would only get some kind of accountability mechanism happening. But no, as long as your anointed alpha kept winning to the nth degree, accountability could wait, eh? Until...?
As for this ilk's supposed part in your downfall - oh puh-lease!!!! That's been played and it's a crock of shite.
All that aside, Harry, best of luck with whatever you're applying yourself to. Father Park is right, it could be fun at times. Perhaps free-speech and agenda-monkeydom are just a fatal mix.
My beer window will have to wait, as I'm expected down on the coast this arvo. Oh, maybe just a little beer porthole, then...
Mike, the WD moderators appear to have gone to the coast themselves perhaps for a cleansing swim, so hopefully your piece will get some play on their return. I'll try to think of something reasonably relevant or even inflammatory to post there myself.
I have no association with the Liberal Party. I just vote for them. I'd never be actually in it!
I have no complaints either about the way the whole thing panned out. We don't live in a one party state and by any measure, twelve years is an excellent run. I'd say it's going to be a long term now in the wilderness. The only reason they kept winning was Howard and his appeal in the marginal seats. Soppy sad little Brendan Nelson would make people in the marginals want to puke so it is really OVER for a long time for the Liberals. There is no character like JWH in the wings, unfortunately. The urban sophisticate type Liberal will never play well where it counts.
Looking back on the Howard era is like looking back on the Menzies era. I will always look back on it with great fondness.
It's sort of how you feel for Whitlam and all your other Labor heroes.
For people like me, it's Menzies and Howard. Two giants. We celebrate successes, not failures as Labor does. For instance, Labor does not celebrate Hawke even though he was by far the best of the lot of them. The person who wins the most elections wins overall!
Howard and Hawke were great in that regard. Howard had to come a cropper eventually and I have no particular issue with it at all. In many respects it is surprising those wonder years lasted so long.
I suppose Labor helped with the Latham fiasco and all the rest of it.
Anyway now its time for walkies and perhaps a late afternoon beer window with my bestest beer window mate.
I must remember not to look back here, lest I feel the urge to comment when you inevitably respond with the Labor answer to this comment.
GOODBYE!
A "Labor answer"?
Alrighty then...
IT'S TIME!!!
... to declare this thread closed!
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