Orlando: Mourning

Guardian Online have now published over 50 stories on the Orlando Terror Attack.

OJ's on good form...

 Well, I think he is - I skim read it tbh.

One of the most shared, here and in the Twitterspehere, was Samra Habib's Queer Muslims exist – and we are in mourning too 

And here's the awful Suzanne Moore missing the point quite spectacularly.

Suzanne Moore: Hooray For Me!

The Guardian.

Can't be arsed to critique this, but if you mutter 'bollocks' under your breath after reading every other sentence you'll get the general idea.

Suzanne Moore: No More (Can You See What I Did There?)

Suzanne Moore likes to think of herself as a bit of an anarchist.
Which, presumably, is why like all good anarchists she wrote a column for the Mail On Sunday and stood at the last election on a "Vote For Suzanne Moore" ticket.
Oddly, for an anarchist - or a bit of one - she seems rather keen on telling other people how to live their lives.
T'other day it was trans people.
Today it is a thing about The Gays in The Guardian.
The piece is somewhat baffling, to say the least - I shall not quote a line from it, because it would be unkind as not one sentence makes sense and she clearly needs help - but might I recommend The Guardian in future asks for a breath test before she submits her copy?

The Observer: And Now Some Good News?

Statement from John Mulholland, editor of The Observer:

We have decided to withdraw from publication the Julie Burchill comment piece 'Transsexuals should cut it out'. The piece was an attempt to explore contentious issues within what had become a highly-charged debate. The Observer is a paper which prides itself on ventilating difficult debates and airing challenging views. On this occasion we got it wrong and in light of the hurt and offence caused I apologise and have made the decision to withdraw the piece. The Observer Readers' Editor will report on these issues at greater length.

The comments posted beneath the article have also been removed in line with our deletion process and as a result these comments will no longer appear in individual users' profiles. 

The Observer online.

The above statement has replaced Julie Burchill's disgusting transphobic rant, following a storm of protest.

Not sure what the Orwellian act of deleting it from the web changes - and I don't think it's a good thing, bar as an admission of guilt - but well done to all who kicked up a fuss.

Let us hope this awful saga means we have now reached a turning point. 

Next I'd like to know why The Observer decided to run that trash in the first place.
This isn't about freedom of speech, it's about a newspaper deciding what to publish.

PS Suzanne Moore has sort-of apologised for her comments. No word yet from that serial transphobe - and homophobe - Julie Bindel. I wouldn't hold your breath...

PPS Poor beleaguered Julie - so silenced, so censored - soon had her article re-published by the Telegraph online.

Update: Over the following few days Independent Voices ran several pieces like this defending Burchill and criticising The Observer - all very silly and partisan school playground stuff...

Julie Burchill: And The Illiberal Liberal Media Elite

Julie Burchill's probably sprawled out on her Hove sofa cackling into her sixth glass of champagne right now.
In today's Observer she writes a now thankfully all-too rare article.
It starts with the offensive headline, Transsexuals Should Cut It Out - Gosh Julie, you're so provocative! - then rapidly proceeds to descend downhill.
I'm not sure what there is to say about Burchill's predictable wading in to defend her journalism-as-showbusiness chums, Julie Bindel and Suzanne Moore.
Apart from how La Burchill doesn't leap into print to defend much of late; bar Israeli Zioinism.
I said what I think about "this sort of thing" on Friday here - On Journalism As Vanity.
Now just add "and Julie Burchill".
(Odd how Bindel keeps complaining about some "trans cabal" out to get her, but watch how these three media manger-hoggers have closed ranks now).

I've made the point endlessly that people who are trans now occupy the same place in the media as gay men did in the 80s; they're usually only allowed to be presented as figures of fun or fear, and you can get away with saying whatever the diddlybum you want about them.
And heaven forfend if any of their pesky trouble-makers dare talk back!
One can only hope this week will be a "Stephen Gately/Jan Moir" moment and the media might take note of the offence they keep causing, and how readers don't find this as "amusing" as their writers do. 
For star journalists like these, controversy is their currency - they get off on our outrage.
They must be loving this hooha.
Maybe tis best to ignore them, then?
Should we be surprised that The Guardian/Observer have published this reactionary, bigoted, juvenile junk?
There's no such thing as bad publicity, as the old cliche goes, and just look at all the traffic this has brought to their website!
This is the economy of the mass media. 
Welcome to the new hegemony of the illiberal liberal media elite.

Fagburn: On Journalism As Vanity

I feel I should say something about the recent Julie Bindel and Suzanne Moore hoohas, as they've become quite "a thing".
But I'm not sure I can be arsed.
Why add to the pyre of ire they so clearly desire?
I can't even be bothered to add links, so Google it.
And why argue the toss with intellectual idiots?
You'll be familiar with that old cliche/truism about how "power corrupts..."
It's so banal you probably heard it in primary school.
But it's a classic example of ideological arse-over-titness.
It's far more often the case that the corrupt seek power.
As we see here - and there and everywhere.
The worst kind of journalists are the ones who clearly get off on seeing their names in print.
Or worse, their stupid photo.
Egomaniacs wanting nothing but self-advancement.
No noble aims, just a quest for fame.
When not being obediently banal and stating the bleeding obvious, controversy is their currency.
Are you surprised these professional sociopaths' writing shows such contempt for other people?
That they act like such bullies, then go batshit if anyone dares point out they're just bullshit generators?
Getting their mates to back them up, school playground style.
Did you really expect them to be moral agents?
They can claim to be a radical or on the left all they want, but it's laughable when so much that they write are just flatulent expressions of right-wing hegemony.
This is what Ulrike Meinhof called "Columnism".
"A herd of independent minds" feigning dissent while conforming to the new spirit of the age; "Forget all but self".
Moral: Always, always run from the vain.

Gay Marriage: Feigning Dissent

Suzanne Moore takes on gay marriage in her Guardian column today.
As often with Moore I sort of agree with the main thrust of her argument; being "gay-friendly" may have become "the key signifier of modernity", but conservatives are only comfortable with homosexuality which mirrors heterosexuality.
"Equality surely means more than a lifetime of monotonous monogamy."
Yes, fine, ok, agreed.
Moore doesn't use the phrase, but the piece is flagged up by The Guardian online as being about "The New Gay Conservatism".
What hyperbolex!
Whenever I see the media announcing "The New Something Or Other" - as with when they announce "The Death Of Something Or Other" - I reach for my revolver.
And as often happens with Moore she rather ruins things with some embarrassing pseudo-radical drivel.
Moore quotes Cameron; "I support gay marriage because I am a Conservative."
She says "this is exactly why I don't "support" gay marriage."
Which is the politics of the primary school playground.
Like some gay journalists - often the most reactionary ones - she thinks taking an oppositional stance on an issue like gay marriage has a magical power to instantly make her a radical.
Poof!
There's lots of 80s post modern guff about how gay identity has become "something of a strait jacket".
Hey, maybe we're all bisexual really...
She backs this up by using clever sounding Po Mo words like "narrative" and "discourse", and by putting things in ironic quotation marks ("They then must face up to who they "really" are...")
She even uses that most laughable word in the post structuralist's dictionary; "transgression" - the sure sign of a phoney feigning dissent.
Suzanne Moore's "conclusion" is confused and confusing;
"State-endorsed coupling for all is as conservative as they come! The dulling of a gay dream... any progressive would not waste time arguing the case for gay marriage. Quite the opposite. Instead, the right to civil partnerships should be extended to everyone."
Eh?
What are civil partnerships if not "state-endorsed coupling"?
Tacked on the end of her article is a small piece by Peter Tatchell arguing the opposite.
It's rare to get a counter-argument printed as a postscript - a sign perhaps that The Guardian senses she's talking shit?
Tatchell answers a question Moore asks but doesn't answer; "If two people want to publicly affirm their love and have a celebration, why is a civil partnership ceremony not good enough? What exactly is missing here?"
Tatchell writes; "Personally, I don't like marriage. I share the feminist critique of its history of sexism and patriarchy. I would not want to get married. But as a democrat and human rights defender, I support the right of others to marry. This is a simple issue of equality. The ban on same-sex marriage is discrimination and discrimination is wrong, full stop."
This point should be as obvious as rain, but Moore was too busy posturing to see it.

Thought For The Day: Suzanne Moore

"We desperately need foster parents, but what drives Christians to go to court to prove they can legally discriminate against homosexuals? Don’t they have better things to do?
"Bishops say this is not a secular country. Judges say it is. I agree. Canon Dr Chris Sugden made me laugh complaining that the Christian faith is treated as if it were ‘on a parallel with Melanesian frog worship’. This is not a faith I am familiar with, but one for the census definitely."

Suzanne Moore, The Mail On Sunday - Fagburn reads it so you don't have to...
For an alternative view see Nick "Hello, I'm bobbins!" Ferrari in his Sunday Express column, 'The Stench Of Real Prejudice' - as Fagburn predicted he's used David Starkey's "new tyranny" trope.

• Image 'Zuerst die Füsse' by Martin Kippenberger - "Banned by the Pope"