My Blocking Policy: A Public Information

A lot of people these days are on Twitter. And a lot of those people who are on Twitter can get very passionate about things. These people mostly look like this:

One of the things they get passionate bout is being blocked. For those of you who aren't on Twitter because you're on some kind of reality show where you're only allowed to use technology from the 17th century or something, being "blocked" means another Twitter user has decided that they wish not to see what you tweet, to not allow you to see what they tweet, and to, in a general sense, cut off communications between your account and theirs.

Blocking can be very upsetting, obviously. It's never nice to be told you're not wanted, and so I understand perfectly when people arc up and get snitty about being blocked. I understand why they say things like "Oh I was blocked by Ben Pobjie - turns out he's too precious to take criticism" or "Ben Pobjie claims to support free speech yet he blocks me #irony". They don't say these things just because they're cretins - they say them because they are in a state of high emotion that makes them act like cretins.

What they want, most of all, is to know why. It's agony to be blocked on Twitter and have no idea of the reason - it turns one's whole life into a desert of shifting sands. Certainty vanishes and all is a fog of mistrust and anxiety. I appreciate this.

This is why I have decided to lay out, here and now, my Blocking Policy.

That's right, all my Twitter blocking is done according to a strict charter, which governs my blocking activity. Once you know what this consists of, I'm sure you'll have a much better understanding of why I blocked you, or why I'm about to.

My Blocking Policy is a five-point policy. Every single block I engage in is done for one or more of these five points, which are, and I can't stress this enough, the ONLY reasons I ever block anyone.

So, you know, if you've been blocked by me, it was because:

1. I don't want to talk to you.

2. I don't want you to talk to me.

3. I don't want me to be talked to by you.

4. Talking, in terms of the two of us, has become undesirable to me.

5. What I want is to do things which aren't talking to you or being talked to by you.

So there you go. I hope that's clear.

A Defining Moment For Our Generation

As you probably know because you don't suck, I am an active member of the Twitter community, where I offer political views, gentle, homespun humour, and loyal friendship to people who say nice things about me if they are good-looking. I find Twitter the most ideal medium yet devised for getting into fights, inserting the word "penis" into incongruous phrases, and telling other people how much better you are than them.

As a Twitterite in good standing, I am pleased that soon a momentous event will occur: MY ONE HUNDRED THOUSANDTH TWEET. At time of blogging I am on 99,802, and I am so close I can literally taste it. It tastes like copper. Is that good?

Anyway, a massive online milestone deserves a massive online celebration, just like the ones I had for my 18th and 21st birthdays, but not for my 30th because that was actually pretty lame. Also, not much like the ones I had for my 18th and 21st birthdays because those were actual parties with food and drink and this really isn't.

The hashtag is #Pobjie100000. The lead-up to the great moment is a fantastic opportunity to reminisce about the highlights of my time on Twitter. Such as:

- the time someone called me sexist

- the time someone called me racist

- the time Martha Plimpton tweeted to me to cheer me up

- that joke I made about Christopher Pyne

- #replacelobgwithearwigsongs


When the actual 100,000th tweet arrives of course, there are many ways you could celebrate, including:

1. tweeting "congratulations Ben! I am madly in love with you hope that's cool #justsayin"

2. tweeting "#Pobjie100000 is the best thing to ever have happened, how does Ben manage to be so great?"

3. Running into the street and firing your gun into the air.

4. Sidling behind a customer service counter at Myer and quietly touching yourself.

5. Writing to the ABC demanding I be put on the Q&A; panel or you will take drastic action.

6. Eating three litres of ice-cream in half an hour.

7. Dancing wildly naked beneath the autumn moon in front of a video camera.

8. Sending me money in large amounts.

9. Naming your child/pet/speedboat after me.

10. Using your position as a television producer to get my TV show greenlit.

11. Using your position as a publisher to get my book published.

12. Using your position as prime minister to get my enemies murdered.

13. Giving me a great big squishy hug.

14. Running madly through the town screaming, "IT'S HERE IT'S HERE OUR SALVATION IS AT HAND!"

15. Having a drink and a pizza and watching Monty Python DVDs.

Whatever you choose, it will be quite a party.

Fine

1. No, I have not quit Twitter. But I have felt very much like it on numerous occasions, and vacillated over whether I should or not. Probably if I did my mental health would improve. I have not quit because I enjoy Twitter, and going there to make jokes, find out new things, and chat to friends is fun. This is quite important: I use Twitter for fun. I don't use it to toughen my hdie against attack, and I don't use it as a forum to hurl abuse, and have it hurled at me. I like to go to Twitter to feel good, not to feel bad.

I have a full-time job. Not writing: an actual, 9-to-5, five day a week office job completely unrelated to my writing or my comedy. Forty hours of every week is spent at work. Around fifteen hours a week is spent travelling to and from work. Everything you read that I write, in The Age, New Matilda, King's Tribune, The Drum, Crikey, in my books, on this blog or anywhere else, was written in my personal time outside work. Any time you saw me speak or perform anywhere was my spare time, not my working day - these days I've probably come straight from work: until July last year I would have been going TO work after the gig, as I worked night shift for five years. Time for sleep and to spend with my wife, my six-year-old son and two-year-old twin daughters, is on top of this. What I'm saying is, I don't have a hell of a lot of free time. To spend any of it at all going online to absorb a torrent of abuse from complete strangers would be terribly inefficient.

2. When you tweet to me, you tweet to me. Please keep in mind that what has been grinding me down has not been people talking about me - I don't much mind what people say about me, and even if I did I wouldn't deny anyone's right to say it. But when you tweet TO me, it's addressed to me. You're not talking about me, you're talking to me, and I take it as such. If you are the kind to send abusive letters or make obscene phone calls to strangers, or walk up to people in the street and swear in their faces, then please do keep on tweeting "@benpobjie you are shit". If you are not that kind of person, then please do bear in mind mind that when you tweet that stuff, that's exactly what you're doing, and I'm going to treat you like the rude bastard you are. Talk about me all you like, but please do not expect me to take kindly to people who I don't even know talking rudely TO me. Of course a lot of people will tell me it goes with the territory, but almost all of them will be people who don't have to listen to strangers calling them a misogynist cunt on an hourly basis.

3. This whole storm is NOT about people criticising my work. The debate that sprang up about the word "hysteria" was not sparked by anything I wrote. It was a friend of mine, not I, who wrote the article referring to hysteria. I joined the conversation to defend him and put forward my belief that it was not a sexist remark and not an invalid criticism to make. I still believe that, and presumably so do the many, many people of both sexes who made exactly the same argument that I did. My opinion of what "hysteria" means is, incidentally, based on my experience of the way it's actually used, and the dictionary. Other people differ, and that is fine and I will continue to think they're absurdly wrong and they will continue to think the same of me. But I feel it is quite important to note that this controversy is not based on my own article in the King's Tribune about porn, but on somebody else's article and the furore around one single word used in that article.

4. Anyone wishing to make a point about the article I DID write should note that it is, like most things I write, comedy. This is not a defence against charges of offensiveness, but it is a defence against charges of literally meaning the absurdist jokes within it. If you're going to engage with it, you have to engage with it as comedy, or else you are, frankly, an idiot.

5. Mainly this is all because I said "fuck you" to a beloved Twitter feminist. This was not because I reject the idea of male privilege, because I don't. Male privilege is real, and it is significant, and it is an interesting area of discussion. And I don't need it explain to me, because I've had it explained to me in the past, and I've never once denied its reality and its very real effect on society. But it is not a golden snitch in arguments - you can't produce it and claim victory by default. "You couldn't possibly understand because of male privilege" may or may not, in any given situation, be true, but it is not an argument: it is what you say when you can't be bothered making an argument. Because even if it's male privilege that causes somebody to be wrong, you still have to be able to explain why they're wrong: otherwise you're just copping out (and for one thing, if it's just a case of male privilege, what have you got up your sleeve to shoot down the ten women saying exactly the same thing as me?). I have never, ever, tried to win an argument by telling my opponent, "As a woman you are incapable of understanding". For somebody else to tell me I am incapable of understanding because I am a man, thereby invalidating any opinion I might have on the basis of my gender, is not a serious attempt at debate: it is an attempt to shut the debate down and declare victory by one vagina to nil. Frankly, anyone who does that to me - especially on the end of a conversation in which I've been patronised, condescended to and told that I was letting the world down by not cimply agreeing with what I'm told - is saying "fuck you" to me: and I prefer to just say "fuck you" straight out rather than dance around it that way. Anyone telling me I have no right to an opinion because I'm a man will get the same response every time.

6. I am a feminist. I am not a feminist because feminism needs male allies or because I've decided it's a cool club to join. I'm a feminist because I can't help being one: the way I view the world is simply a feminist one and I can't change that without changing almost every opinion I hold. This doesn't mean I'm always right about gender issues: I don't know anyone who I think is always right about gender issues, so I can't see how it'd be possible for me to be. And the aforementioned male privilege means my worldview is always coloured and I do have to take extra care in examining and testing my own views.

But I am sincere, and I am dedicated, and I am going to keep being a feminist, keep expressing feminist opinions and keep acting in the feminist cause, because it is very important, it is right, it is just, and it is a far bigger deal than my hurt feelings. I've found as a male feminist that you tend to get much more abuse from other feminists than from sexists, but that's life. I may not like it, but feminism matters much more than I do.

I'm also going to keep on disagreeing with other feminists and saying "fuck you" to anyone who disrespects and patronises me - especially if they are going to accuse me of sexism or misogyny. I think I've nailed my colours to the mast with my work. Nobody who knows me personally could think I'm anti-feminist. Nobody who knows my body of work could think I'm anti-feminist. Anyone who does think so is either ignorant, misinformed or just plain stupid. And I freely admit that being accused of bigotry of any kind riles me up something fierce.

7. I am by no means famous, but I am to a certain extent a public figure, and a lot of people know who I am even though I don't know who they are. And I'm still figuring out how to negotiate that, and not get too caught up with the bad stuff. Learning on the job, so to speak. I try to be pretty open and friendly, and engage with the people who read my stuff, because I'm grateful to them and I like the fact my work allows me to meet interesting new people and converse with them. Twitter is great for that, and I don't want to end up with my tweets being reduced to carefully crafted zingers and links to my columns and nothing else, never replying to people or opening up to the public. I want Joe Hildebrand's job, but I don't want to be Joe Hildebrand. I'd rather be able to keep being me for as long as possible. I beg your forgiveness and patience for the fact that being me is often really quite annoying for everyone.

8. Whatever else you think, you can't deny King's Tribune gets people talking. Go subscribe.

9. I suffer from depression and anxiety. This means I sometimes overreact to things, and get more upset than I should. I know this. I apologise for it. I don't want to make excuses, and I'm working on improving in this regard. I don't want people to cut me slack for it - it's just an explanation.

10. I didn't want to write this, and I wish I wasn't, but it seems the affair refuses to die because some people just want to keep it going. Please bear in mind: all that happened was that some people you don't know disagreed with each other about one word, and then one of those people was rude to another one in one sentence on the internet. It's unbelievably stupid that people are still talking about it: it just doesn't freaking matter, people. I'm desperately hoping that by laying all this out I can put a full-stop on it. Henceforth anyone wishing to rekindle the argument will be blocked, mocked, and have their parentage called severely into question. Because I'm sick of it, and almost everything on earth is more important. OK? I'd love to get back to joking about the Biggest Loser and inserting the word penis into movie titles now if it's all the same to you.

11. Thank you for listening. Please enjoy this picture of Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe in the Avonlea schoolhouse.

The Great Astor Tweet

What is the Great Astor Tweet? It is an opportunity for Twitterati of good will and friendly mien to gather at the Astor Theatre in darkest Melbourne and celebrate both the cinematic art, and the twittermatic art.

What this means is that on Monday, August 22, at 7.30pm, the Astor will screen a double feature of classic cult films - first Withnail and I, then Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Downstairs in the stalls will be a hardy band of tweeters, providing running social media commentary on the films in whatever way takes their fancy.

So what should you do to take part in this grand experiment? Easy:

1. Go to the Astor Theatre in the evening of Monday August 22.

2. Buy a ticket, and possibly some popcorn.

3. Make your way to the stalls (this is a designated tweeting area - do not mingle with non-tweeters, or as we call them "muggles", for fear the glow of your smartphone will enrage them).

4. Put your phone on SILENT. This is important - we have a designated area in the stalls so that our lights don't infuriate others, but we will really make ourselves unpopular if we become the source of constant beeping and ringing. In fact, we'll become unpopular with ourselves.

5. Relax.

6. Tweet in a thoughtful and/or hilarious manner for the duration of the double feature, or until you want to go home, whichever comes first. While tweeting, use the hashtag #AstorTweet to ensure you are participating fully in the community spirit.

7. Hurrah!

If you can't make it to the theatre, chime in yourself with your thoughts about the movie, or don't. I mean those are two fairly broad options you have there. But if you're a lover of the films in question, or just someone who likes a larf, you're welcome to join our merry troupe even if you're not physically present. Come one, come all, to the Great Astor Tweet!

And so we will soon all be having as much fun as this guy:




In order to bring you the finest tweets available to humanity, we acknowledge the generous assistance, support and affection of the Astor, Popcorn Cinema, and Owen Vandenberg of TweetFilm . Together we bring you this marvel out of the goodness of our own hearts.

Do join us, it'll be a blast!

Let's Get Organised, Avonleaps!

UPDATE!!!!! It'll be on at 8.30, NOT 7.30. Outrageous!

It has come to my attention that this Saturday, 4th December (TOMORROW! EEK! Do we have time????) at 7.30pm, Channel Seven will be screening seminal 1985 Canadian telemovie "Anne of Green Gables", also known as The Greatest Story Ever Told.

In celebration of this fact, I call on all men and women of goodwill to join together, cancel any frivolous, futile plans you might have had for that night, and sit yourselves down to watch this masterpiece in a spirit of community and togetherness. If you like, you can gather your friends around in a literal "Anne Party", but even if you're watching alone, you shan't be, for we shall be holding a VIRTUAL Anne Party, all of us, around the nation, watching together, feeling the spirit and the message of Anne, bound together by the bonds of bosom friendship and period romance just as surely as if we were in the same room. On that night we shall all be brothers and sisters in Anne. It will bring us closer together, and by Sunday morning we will all be better, kinder, gentler people for having watched it together.

Why not join the anticipation on Twitter? The Anne Party hashtag, it has been decreed, is #anneparty. Use it to engage in discussion before, during and after the broadcast, to inform about preparations for the Anne Party, and just to commune with like-minded souls.

See you there, Annelites!

Intemperate Overblown Rant No. 1

OK, Twitter. You know I have always been a friend to you. I have always stood by your side, championed your cause, defended you when others put you down.

But there are some things, Twitter, that are indefensible, and today you hit a new low.

For today was the day when Twitter reached such terrifying subterranean depths of stupid that we may never get out again. So, so stupid did Twitter become that it sucked the real world into its maelstrom of idiocy and suddenly everything was inside out, black was white, up was down, and Denise Drysdale was a small Welsh village.

Here is the story. You may have heard it.

Chapter One: A young woman in America started a Twitter account with the username "@theashes". Apparently this was a nickname bestowed on her by her boyfriend. Who knows why? Perhaps he is a cricket fan. Perhaps he is a pyromaniac. We shall never know; or rather, we probably shall know, and then wish we didn't because it is so boring and stupid.

Chapter Two: Some people start putting @theashes in their tweets about The Ashes, as in the cricketing series. This is presumably because they were too dumb to know the difference between a hashtag (#) and a reply (@). So the first REALLY stupid part of the story comes here, where not only are those people stupid, but for some reason the dominant meme does not become "these people are stupid".

Chapter Three: Awash in cricketing tweets, the young woman quite reasonably asks that people stop tweeting her about cricket, because she is not a cricket match. People do not stop. Getting annoyed, she repeats her request in more robust language.

Chapter Four: Large numbers of people then decide that what would be REALLY funny, would be if they all bombarded the woman with tweets, just to annoy her, because harassing strangers who've done nothing wrong is the real reason for Twitter's existence. Stupidity quotient then increases, as once again, the dominant meme fails to be "This is REALLY freaking stupid".

Chapter Five: It being decided people were really being quite mean, some Twitter users then decided that, just as the solution to a small peper-cut is to cover your entire body in bandages and dive into an Olympic swimming pool filled with antiseptic, the way to redress the situation would be to start a campaign to #gettheashestotheashes. Or, if we look at it another way, it's possible the intention was to redress the situation by making fun of it. Which wouldn't be so bad, BUT...

Chapter Six: The campaign took off, and QANTAS ("getting you to your destination with less than 25% of the plane exploding and/or falling off or your money back") decided oh wouldn't it be a delightful lark if we...if we...

GAVE THIS WOMAN A FREE FLIGHT TO AUSTRALIA!!!!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

She has a FREE TRIP TO AUSTRALIA!

For her USERNAME!

She named herself @theashes - and therefore she gets a free flight to Australia!!!

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, it's not that I wish this girl any ill. Good luck to her, she's a winner out of this.

But the stupid...it BURNS.

It may be the stupidest reason anybody has received free air travel in the history of the world - way stupider than when Virgin Blue flew a flock of sheep to Tahiti as a sacrifice to Ra.

It's like a mighty Stupid Auction - having put in an impressive opening bid by harassing a woman because of her username, Twitter then outbid ITSELF by getting a woman to travel to Australia because of her username.

WHAT MADNESS IS THIS? AM I to be the last sane man left on earth? Shall I wander the land lonely and terrified lest the maniacal idiots surrounding me engage in conversation?

Note: this "Twitter celebrity" is not a celebrity because of anything she's done. Or anything she's said. Or anything she's tweeted. Or anything she IS. Purely and simply because of her username.

"Oh, you're @theashes? Better get you to The Ashes then, right? Logical next step."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

SHE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT CRICKET.

This is so stupid. It's like a great ocean of stupid, teeming with stupid fish which are caught in stupid nets hung from the sides of stupid trawlers manned by stupid fishermen.

It's a vast galaxy of stupid, full of enormous stupid stars around which rotate beautiful and mysterious stupid planets, yet to be explored by intrepid stupidnauts who have gone into suspended stupid animation for the long stupid flight to uncharted space.

It's a mountain of stupid, unclimbable apart from the very stupidest mountaineers, who will plant their stupid flags on its stupid peak and proclaim they claim this stupid mountain in the name of Stupid, thus allowing stupid miners to later come and mine the rich seams of stupid running through the mighty stupid mountain, until they run foul of the stupid orcs who live beneath the mountain and prey on the hapless stupid miners, who are forced to arm themselves with stupid weapons and drive the orcs stupidly back into their stupid caves so they can mine in stupid peace, until one stupid day they delve too stupidly and awakwen a stupid Balrog, who kills them all stupidly.

It is...pretty...stupid.

Please, please, Twitter, don't be so stupid again. Or I am going to have to leave you.

Dispensable Musings

The story of Mr Stephen Fry, who said some silly things and was upset.

It is a shame. You will be unsurprised to know that I am an enormous admirer of Stephen Fry. His writing, his acting, his comedy, his QI-hosting, his documentaries, and even his Twitter feed. I yield to no one in my admiration for the man. And it is very easy in such circumstances to forgive your role model the sins you condemn in others. And it's almost as easy to overcompensate and savage your role model for sins you would shrug off in others. So it's important to note, just at the start, that I am hopelessly morally compromised and my opinions on this matter, as in all others, are worthless. However, here goes.

The fact is that, on face value, these comments are fairly stupid. They are fairly ridiculous generalisations that are untrue and no doubt offend a lot of women, and gay men. And to say, "oh but there's a grain of truth there" is of course what is said about all ridiculous generalisations; maybe there IS a grain of truth, but a good rule of thumb is, if there's a grain of truth you wish to express, then express a grain of truth, not a wheatfield of wild exaggeration.

But Fry says he was misquoted, having given a "humorous interview". OK. I am willing to hear him out here. Maybe with others I wouldn't be so forgiving, and maybe that's the bias referred to above. But Fry has, I think, earned a certain level of esteem from me, so I'm willing to listen to any explanation and accept it if it's, well, acceptable. Some will not grant him the same indulgence - such as Germaine Greer, who replied to his stupid generalisations with some of her own; but that's Germaine for you, lovably ballistic as always. I don't blame them at all, for we each must make up our own minds as to what we accept and what we rail against. But I'll hear him out. Hell, I'll hear anyone out, really. It's only fair.

Because after all, I think I'm right in saying that Stephen Fry has not, in the past, established himself as an inveterate misogynist. Of course, he has established himself as a comedian, so if it was humour, it wouldn't be out of character. Even if you might not think it was very funny.

(as an aside, here is a video from some time ago, in which he speaks along the same themes, and does seem to be having a bit of fun more than anything; the old "differences between men and women" schtick, with a bit of "aren't men ridiculous creatures" thrown in. So if the interview he gave was a reprise of that routine...he would seem to have a case for grievance here. In my own, as we have established, worthless opinion.

But maybe it wasn't really a joke. If not, it did come across as the musing of a man who is somewhat baffled by matters sexual, which is pretty much the way Stephen Fry has come across for many years now. So maybe he needs some education.

And maybe, humorous or not, he was, as he says, seriously misquoted. But if so, I would like to know what he really said. I hope I get to find out. Unfortunately, everyone who says something idiotic always cries "misquote" or "out of context", so one craves something more if one is to have one's fears assuaged. This is terribly unfair for the genuinely misquoted, of course - to have done nothing wrong, and then have people demand you justify yourself for a non-existent act or sommen, is extremely frustrating. But still, these are disturbing comments, and it would benefit us all, including Mr Fry, to know his response in full.

So I hope he doesn't stay quiet. I hope he comes out and engages. I hope this even if he just puts this affair behind him and never mentions it again. Because even idiotic comments, while they may tarnish someone's sheen, don't destroy it. Stephen Fry, even with a blemish or two, will remain Stephen Fry. Much worse has been said by people who carried on blithely and without a care in the world. Basically, one stupid opinion does not a monster make. Even Spida Everitt has his good points. Even Kyle Sandilands...well, no, not really.

I think Fry is fragile and easily wounded, and retreats quickly in the face of attack. And to be fair, when you have 2 million Twitter followers, it must be somewhat overwhelming when the world comes down on you.

But I hope he comes back. And I hope, if he is able to set the record straight. And if the record we have is already straight, I hope he does learn the error of his ways.

And those are my thoughts, presented for your disposal.

Compare and Contrast

Miranda Devine:

In a chaotic world of aggregators, of Google and Twitter and specialist web feeds, a newspaper is a "credible one-stop shop" of local news where all the hard choices have been made for the reader. Which is why not trashing the brand is more important than ever. Sorry, Catherine.

Miranda Devine:



(for the more complete story, check out Pure Poison)

Wow...that brand is looking ever so good.

Miranda then deleted her comment about how gay men have sex with animals. I don't know why; it's almost like she thought some people might have considered it inappropriate.

Anyway, good to know Fairfax has standards.

For What It's Worth

I feel compelled to comment on the sacking of Catherine Deveny from The Age. Bear with me, or ignore it if you've no interest in my being serious - God knows I would understand that. There's plenty of good commentary about anyway, probably better than mine - from Daniel Burt, for example, or even over at Pure Poison - and anyone who reads PP regularly knows they are no fans of Deveny.

I am going to make no pretence to impartiality here. Catherine Deveny is a friend of mine, so I am by no means unbiased. She's not my friend because I agree with everything she says, but she is my friend and obviously I'm likely to take her side when she gets knocked about like this. So this isn't coming from an objective place and I know it.

BUT...

For what it's worth, I'm troubled by this. Getting sacked for a couple of posts on Twitter? Really? A couple of one-line jokes?

Now, there is no point arguing about whether the jokes were funny. That's purely subjective, and an argument without a point. It's also irrelevant. Were they offensive? Undoubtedly - they clearly offended a lot of people. But then, what comedian hasn't offended someone? What opinion writer hasn't offended someone? I'm regularly offended by right-wing columnists from all parts, and I've never believed my offence was grounds for their dismissal.

And here we are talking about being offended by actual, serious arguments being put forward in articles published in newspapers - not a couple of throwaway gags of 140 characters or less. So is offending people a sin worthy of dismissal? Clearly it's not. Not even at The Age itself - Catherine's been offending people in droves for years, and they haven't kicked her to the kerb.

Tasteless jokes are common among comedians, and even commoner on Twitter. It would seem a huge overreaction for The Age to take this action based on such minor, disposable comments.

But the thing is, they didn't. The Age didn't act on the tweets. The Age acted on the "controversy". The Herald Sun whipped it up, its readers fell into lockstep behind it, and The Age went along with it.

One can't imagine this working the other way. Were The Age to report on a "storm of criticism" being sparked off by Andrew Bolt's latest vicious slurs on refugees, or to denounce, say, his characterising of Kevin Rudd as a murderer who "fries" people in roofs, one doubts the Herald Sun would feel compelled to sack Bolt in response. Au contraire, they'd probably rub their hands with glee at the controversy.

I'm not denying The Age has a right to choose its own columnists. I was kicked off the radio for making bad-taste jokes, and I never claimed the station was engaging in "censorship" for making that kind of editorial decision. But that doesn't mean the decision is right either. The Age has been dictated to by the hysteria concocted by its rivals, and I think that's a shame. They've lost a distinctive voice that, no matter what sort of reaction she provoked, always provided something different in the paper, which could only have been a good thing. And I think that's a shame too.

And this isn't an issue of whether you like Deveny, or think she's funny or not, or approved of the jokes that got her in trouble. It's an issue of whether you think Twitter jokes should be elevated to a level of importance that will lose someone their job. And it's an issue of whether you think simply causing "offence" is a sin serious enough to warrant getting the boot. I think if being offensive is not allowed, it's a rather sad turn of events for the media.

I'm not going to boycott The Age. It will remain the best paper we've got here in Melbourne. I'm just disappointed, and I respectfully disagree. I hope at some point they might reconsider and welcome Deveny back. I would urge them to.

Yes, WHY?

I have made my debut on The Punch, with my Twitter piece.

The commenters are already out in force, with the usual nice mix of applause and duhhhhh.

My favourite example, from "Colin Campbell"

"why did you spend seven hours on something you hate?"

Colin is SO onto me. Why DID I do that? It's a completely absurd thing to do! It's just stupid! It's like some ridiculous JOKE!

Hee.

Sort-of news?

I have finally caved, and joined Twitter. So...er, for things briefer, less important and more ephemeral than this blog...um, do whatever people do on Twitter, to me. I guess? This is me.

I honestly do not know what Twitter is...but far be it from me to act like an individual.