Wednesday, January 23, 2008

John Waters is a Ninny

John Waters is a ninny – it’s official. I heard him on Newstalk yesterday spluttering incoherently about how all blogs are dangerous, negative, and iliterate. He also claimed that there was something inherently unhealthy about the interaction between man and the internet. As rants go it was beyond parody in its wrongheadnedness. I suppose purveyors of spurious opinion like himself feel threatened by blogs, which do what he does but do it free. It kind of renders him redundant. I can think of dozens of blogs that are superior (coherent, better written, more interesting and illuminating) to anything Waters is capable of. As for his claim that bloggers have their own political agenda, isn’t this the same John Waters that riddled his Irish Times columns with tedious special pleading for unmarried fathers rights. He also spoke of the "controls" exercised by newspapers. Would these be the same controls that ensure the interests of the advertisers are not threatened. Waters seemed, in essence, to be disturbed by the freedom of expression enjoyed on the web. Of course this gets abused, but it also leads to a more liberated and broader discourse.