"Orthodoxy is passé. it's time to get creative."

This is great advice for any aspiring columnist. It's time to get creative with your choice of slogans - especially if you're going to use them as some kind of thesis sentence.

"...Dion is staying on as the interim leader could be just the ticket"
Yes, the "ticket" in this sentence can mean two things. How clever.

"...he other party leaders have the courage to step up to the plate."
What an original baseball analogy. Clever lines like this one come along once every generation.

"The old thinking is coming so unglued, it's getting ridiculous."
This is a wonderful contrast of the words "glue" and "ridiculous." Without glue, old thinking becomes ridiculous. I like the colorful imagery that comes to mind - and that she seems to be suggesting that "old thinking" was "glue-based."

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Question: Why is this kind of second-rate rhetoric allowed to share valuable pixel-space with some of the talented writing on this website?

Did NOW magazine buy rabble.ca? Was letting Alice Klein post her undergrad-quality crap one of the conditions of the sale?

I'm sorry to be so blunt on my first post here, but I've been reading rabble for the last five years, and only joined Babble to express my concern about this writer's inadequate material.

I can't believe you replaced Heather Mallick with this commercial media woman's worthless texts. Alice Klein needs to go back to whatever she was doing before her limp pen was allowed to contaminate this very worthwhile news site.

[ 25 October 2008: Message edited by: QatzelOk ]

[ 25 October 2008: Message edited by: QatzelOk ]

[ 25 October 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Michelle:
But let's keep it civil, shall we? Calling our writers "worthless" really doesn't advance the discussion at all.

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I don't know very much about the ownership structure of rabble. That's why I only insinuated that perhaps she might own the site.

That being said, saying her pen is limp is NOT sexist. In fact, it is pretty sexist for you guys to be defending her as if she is just so fragile and helpless herself. She is a well-connected media owner, not some fragile little wallflower sitting next to a river throwing pedals into the water whispering "he loves me... he loves me not..."

Anyway, for the people who defended Ms. Klein's contribution to rabble.ca, tell me, do you find her writing insightful and well crafted?

[ 28 October 2008: Message edited by: QatzelOk ]

My opinion is that there is not a whole lot that seperates Klein's liberal views, from that of a number of regular editorialists on this board. I find the whole crew of them to be rather "limp." The only thing that distinguished Klein's "limpidity" from the rest is that she seems to be self-aware enough to realize that she is enough of a liberal to go out and actually recommend that in some cases, some people might vote liberal, as opposed to fronting the idea that the NDP is the "true left."

So, I guess, in the sense that Klein seems to be aware that there is not really a whole lot of difference between the NDP and the Liberals, I guess Klein scores points for some insight. On the other hand her apparent support for either is questionable.

[ 28 October 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:
...I guess Klein scores points for some incite....

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quote:

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
She's certainly managed to insight a lot of critical response from babblers.

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How incisive of you.

I disagree that she is open about her "liberal" stance as she appears to frame her views with "I supported Layton in the election" and somehow suggests that she is just a critical NDP supporter. On the other hand, she does not criticize liberals, so it's definitely not an non-partisan frame.

Duncan Cameron
June Chua
Murray Dobbin
Keith Gottschalk
Am Johal
Jooneed Khan
Naomi Klein
Wayne MacPhail
Heather Mallick
Linda McQuaig
Rick Salutin
Jerry West
Gina Whitfield
Jessica Yee

No one implied there was or was not.

My criticism of Ms. Klein's writing isn't about her politics, it's about her crudely crafted writing and the way in which she proselytizes in a really transparent, unclever way. Her columns are never provocative or entertaining - just really, really bland and almost mind-numbingly predictable and partisan.

quote:

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Originally posted by QatzelOk:
[b]My criticism of Ms. Klein's writing isn't about her politics, it's about her crudely crafted writing and the way in which she proselytizes in a really transparent, unclever way. Her columns are never provocative or entertaining - just really, really bland and almost mind-numbingly predictable and partisan.

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There is a lot of crudely crafted journalism today. Journalists routinely rely on common cliched expressions, aphorisms and metaphors to make complex ideas simple, and to fit them into very restricted space requirement. A cliched expression is an icon as much as it is anything else, like a stop sign, or a yellow light that instantly relay implied and generally understood meaning.

The difference between journalism and creative writing is that the purpose of journalism is conveying information clearly and simply to an wide audience, not making critical breakthroughs in art.

Klein's work is by no means exceptional in this regard, and not even on babble. For instance consider Mallick's use of "pram faced" and "White Trash vote".

[ 29 October 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
She's certainly managed to insight a lot of critical response from babblers.

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M. Spector, you give me groan pains.

[ 29 October 2008: Message edited by: unionist ]

quote:

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Originally posted by unionist:

M. Spector, you give me groan pains.

[ 29 October 2008: Message edited by: unionist ]

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The difference between journalism and creative writing is that the purpose of journalism is conveying information clearly and simply to an wide audience, not making critical breakthroughs in art.
Yes, but that doesn't mean that journalism should be completely uncreative. The width of the audience should determine how comprehensive it is. If Alice Klein feels more comfortable writing for a mass audience who need simple propaganda, well, she has access to other more popularist media. She doesn't have to spoil the tone of rabble with inappropriately situated politics-for-dummies.

Klein's work is by no means exceptional in this regard, and not even on babble. For instance consider Mallick's use of "pram faced" and "White Trash vote".
Heather Mallick's use of these words to make a point is exactly the difference between creative and bland journalism. I enjoy the way Mallick's columns force the reader to consider things like "white trash" in a novel way. It enlightens, rather than manipulates.

The political-correctness of Klein's text is part of what makes them bland. Her use of "our Canada" in the title of one of her recent articles was embarrassingly PC and crudely partisan. The article itself added nothing to any discussion on Canadian electoral politics - except maybe for time-constrained tabloid-readers.

[ 30 October 2008: Message edited by: QatzelOk ]

quote:

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Mallick used the phrase "pram-faced" and also the phrase "White Trash vote". What is not tabloid about that?

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quote:

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Obama is not Marxist.

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Sorry, Cueball. I was referring to this paradigm-shattering interview when I answered your "How is Mallick not tabloid?"

I thought that's what you were referring to.

[ 31 October 2008: Message edited by: QatzelOk ]

quote:

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I am not sure I am better for having seen it. How is this related to Klein?

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But I guess your inference now is that Klein can be dismissed because of her "high school girl clique" reporting. I guess I am a little disappointed that the thread has taken this turn, and it seems we are heading in precisely the direction some here critiqued in an earlier thread, about thread titles and the use of the term "vapidity."

I disagreed that there was anything particularly sexist about the term "vapidity", but I noted that the context of such descriptions indicates where they are really coming from.

[ 01 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

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I disagreed that there was anything particularly sexist about the term "vapidity", but I noted that the context of such descriptions indicates where they are really coming from.

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[ 01 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

Instead, it just lead to yet another deterioration in our society's ability to communicate. Everyone is so careful to use the correct vocabulary that they can't really express any ideas or feelings anymore. And the only opinions that have any "authority" are of those who write as if the KGB is holding a gun to their temple.

It's boring and intellectually vapid. The interviewer of Biden was bleached blond. It's not illegal to say that.

I thought you were opposed to cliched writing? Did you come up with "fabulous bleached blond hair" all on your own?