Manufacturing Dissent

I was having a browse through the back catalogue here at CE and came across a scathing comment on this report about the adventures of the Colonel and Bastard Baby which was buried in the archives. Like Fox, CE prides itself on being fair and balanced, so I reprint it here to give readers a flavour of life in the enemy trenches on the other side of no-man's land. Despite invoking a dismissive "yawn" in respect of CE's output, stats indicate that "eoin" has spent a long time with our content and put a great deal of time and effort into deleting our external link on the wikipedia on the spurious grounds that it's presented as a source. It's not.

Disturbingly, I have to admit I agree with eoin on the TV licence "poll tax". At least I think I do. Just at the point when he mentions it, the burden of coherence starts to get a bit too much for his prose. Enjoy:

Yawn. How very *obvious* that the liberal bourgeoisie would find any hint of politically incorrect deviance in the Irish Times to be appalling, and the geekiest and saddest of them all would found a Myerswatch blog. One would assume that the bllodletting on the afternoon radio shows for *any* deviant opinion Ireland were good enough for that. Maybe this blog should just round up the liberal posse and get the man kicked out of Ireland. Try the same mob that ran Mary Ellen Synon out. Get together with the Muslims who were "offended" by the cartoons, with whom you have much in common.

Possibly Myers best chance now is to go down the Breda O'Brien route and suggest we all be nice to the childers, and the travellers and arent she marvelous altogether: or alternatively he could do a vincent browne and demand that "we as a society " pay him more money, for good egalitarians must have four jobs and one must involve sequestering money from a population poorer than him in the form of the TV license poll tax.

Which is to say, these targets would be easy, but pompous idiots from the millionaire suburbs are probably not going to involve themselves in attacking the actual hypocrisy of their "moral" betters, since the liberal bourgeois hypocrisy of the Irish Times discourse is designed to propagate privilege while pretending to be opposed to it.

Myers breaks ranks and draws too much attention to said discourses, so round up the posse, drive him out of town, for Breda O'Brien has another article about how "we as a society" are responsible for the failure of teachers, managers, and health board officials to educate or treat us properly or fairly, and it is our fault - not the fault of the elites - that they fail . So let's put her in his position lest we be too "offended" too often, and whatho - look! - not really caring to read boring prose one must just turn to the property pages which show one that mamskis and dadskis house is worth millions.

It's just mervelous, roysh. One gets to be a millionaire without any work whatsoever, and it gives one so much time to tackle the hegemonic discourses that make ireland such an unequal place, and bring down that weactionary Myers who said the word bastard!!!

coud one be more radical?

...[sic]

Millionaire teachers, managers and health board officials, for shame! Please leave comments explaining yourselves below.

Where the Grass is Greener

Mere moments ago, I suggested that it would be interesting to see what effect the Colonel's departure from The Irish Times would have on the paper of record's circulation. Simon of The Dossing Times commented:

It will be interesting. I guess he will bring some [my italics, copernicus] readers to the paper.

By readers I meant people who like to write letters to papers. half the letters page is about him what will they do ?

The Sunday Business Post article in the direction of which Simon was kind enough to point CE makes much of the Colonel's clashes with The Irish Times during his long tenure at the paper:

Myers has previously clashed with Kennedy, notably over a January 2005 column which was spiked. In it, he blamed the IRA for the Northern Bank robbery. However, the precise reasons behind his decision to depart are not clear.

[...]

Myers landed in controversy in February last year when a column he wrote described the children of unmarried mothers as ‘‘bastards’’.

He subsequently apologised.

As far as I know, Kevin has long felt seriously under-remunerated for his contribution to the IT's circulation (At least if memory serves, I've been reading as much in The Phoenix since I was a little boy). It was certainly the case that at the height of the Colonel's powers he was putting serious numbers of bums on seats. If he goes, we'll see if that was still the case. (Check out the tense grammar in that sentence, parsing nerds). I may be wrong in playing up the money angle in contradistinction to the SPB, but I wonder at the suggestion that Kevin necessarily considers the Indo a bastion for such as he from the intolerance for his views which has led to conflict with The Irish Times, editor and trust members both.

If memory serves (again), didn't the Independent family (patriarcus maximus, AJF O'Reilly) bring bastard-baby type pressure to bear in respect of the services of the Colonel's good chum and tabloid-christened "Bonk of England", Mary Ellen Synon for what those of a certain cast of mind are disposed to call "crimes" (I'm attributing the ironical inverted commas to them) against political correctness? Readers will remember her apology and subsequent resignation from the paper following the furore which greeted her disparaging remarks about the Special Olympics. (Just who do these bastard babies and persons with intellectual challenge think they are to presume to irritate sensitive souls like Kev and Mary anyway?)

To return to the Sunday Business Post article:

Two years earlier, he attacked the lack of transparency in the financial management of The Irish Times and the large amounts paid to executives.

He contrasted this with the Independent group, writing: ‘‘I am frank in my admiration for Tony O’Reilly.”

Ms Synon's wikipedia entry gives a little background to her disassociation from the group:

The article which was criticised by the NUJ (National Union of Journalists) was subsequently discussed in the [Seanad] where Maurice Hayes, a Senator and director of Independent News & Media, which owns the Sunday Independent, said it was indefensible, indecent and hurtful: "It should not have been written and if written, it should not have been published. I know that my views are shared by my colleagues on the Independent board and in particular by the chairman."

How long before the Colonel incites a similar level of outrage among his expanded readership and causes "the Chairman" to feel certain of his musings should not have been published either? Kevin's passionate support for Ms Synon in her darkest hour was obviously at odds with the attitude of his future board.

On a final, touching note, it seems Ms Synon has continued her journey through the looking glass with a defence of [un]intelligent design. So all is right with the world then.

They seek him here...

They seek him there,
Those bloggers seek him everywhere.
Is he gone insane or just gone awry,
That damn'd, elusive Col. Myers?

Ok, ok, we had to stoop to half ryhme, but the sentiment holds. Quo vadis, Colonel? Your public needs you.

It has been three whole weeks since Cruiskeen Eile had a fresh outrage from the Colonel's quill with which to amuse itself, and we were beginning to fear that we had chased him from the national stage. But we reckoned without his plucky spirit. One does not steep oneself in the glorious lore of the thin red line without learning a thing or two about the true meaning of doughtiness, and the Colonel it appears has departed the field merely to make tactical manouevres on the enemy's flank. According to the Sunday Business Post (hat tip, Dossing Times), Mr. Myers has put the heart crossways in Madam Editrix and is at an advanced stage in negotiations with the Irish Independent.

If the Colonel does decamp to open up a new front in the fight to restore the patriarchy to its rightful place in society, it will be fascinating to see what the effect is on the respective circulations of each organ.

Stay tuned, folks. The party is just getting started up in here.

For King and Country

Dublin is a small and gossipy town and ever since we started this modest diary, people who move in those overlapping media, civil service, legal and other circles have been keen to pass on all sorts of juicy stories about our good friend, Kevin Myers. Among the more interesting tidbits Cruiskeen Eile has been more than a little bemused to learn - from a source in the know - is that in the wake of the terrorist atrocities of “9/11” and the establishment of the coalition of the willing, the Colonel quietly contacted friends in the Royal Irish Regiment, with whose officers he has happily messed on occasion (Irishman’s Diary passim), to see whether it would be possible to obtain a short-service commission and, presumably, do his bit in the great civilisation clash he described in such histrionic tones in the pages of the Irish Times – the beast slouching towards Bethlehem, the blood-dimmed tide, the falconer bidding the falconer etc.

This action isn’t unprecedented among older, conservative celebrity types, of course. Bruce Willis attempted to join the US Special Forces to help prosecute the war on terror, but was also turned down on grounds of age. Both men are known for keeping fit, Bruce through the punishing schedule of physical exercise required by any action star, and Kevin through bracing walks in the Kildare countryside.

Denied the opportunity to square off against the terror merchants, Bruce intends to put a big smile on Mark Humphreys face by making a movie about the activies of Deuce Four, the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment in Iraq.

Congratulations Mark. We hope you and this movie are very happy together.