Blog Awards 2004

Published on December 29, 2004 By Champas Socialist In Blogging

Welcome to the inaugural Moet & Chandon Champagne Socialist Blog Awards. 2004 has been a big year for blogging and for politics. Politically, champagne socialism has taken a battering, but next year will be the year comrades. Next year is the year of the revolution. Next year, the people will spontaneously rise up and claim victory. In a few moments, poverty will dissipate, racism will fade away and all people will learn to live in harmony within our communist utopia.The time is nigh comrades. But for now, let us look back at the year that has been...

Best Political Blog: Not Happy John! Maintained by SMH journo Margo Kingston, who voted for Howard in 1996, NHJ is a call for a return to the core civic values of Australian democracy, which are being hacked away at by John Howard’s extreme Right Government. NHJ is always extremely well researched and pulls no punches. It draws together commentators from both the Left and the Right and will hopefully be the start of a new grassroots movement that restores integrity to Australian politics.

Fairfax journos cling tenaciously to the remnants of a true journalistic culture, one backed by a charter of editorial independence and journalist solidarity when journalistic princpiles are at stake. One where we strive to separate news judgement from the self-interests of owners, boards and advertisers. A culture in which the Board picks the editor and the editor decides what is news and is accountable to the staff for them. A democratic workplace culture of the ‘old-fashioned’ Australian type - which no modern-day power-player either understands or likes. When Keating was Treasurer, he once strode into the SMH Canberra bureau, and brayed at the journalists: ‘Your trouble is that no-one controls you!’

Funniest Blog: John Howard’s blogspot . A comic genius pretends to be John Howard detailing his life as Prime Minister. The characterisation of little Johnny as a child in a playground is satire gold.

Another great part of the election was the forest thing. I was all, "Ooh, I care about trees now." So Mark went, "Yeah? Well I care about trees even MORE! I love trees. I want to have babies with them." And then I went "Ha! Psych! I don't care about trees at ALL, you hippy." And all the people in Tasmania realised that I'm cool and Mark drools.

Best JoeUser Blog: Moderate Response . Myrrander writes about a broad range of interesting topics both insightfully and humorously. Myrrander has a self-deprecating style of humour and also argues her case for the Left extremely well.

Best CS Forum Contributor: Toblerone J Aardvark . Even though he is an animal hating greeny and a future member of the Royal Society for Pretending to Care about Animals (RSPCA), Toblerone has defended me against several crazy Right wing extremists when I haven’t been able to get access to my blog. He usually does so in a way that makes the critic look far sillier than I could ever have made them look, and he also manages to make the point extremely well. Undoubtedly the funniest forum contributor on joeuser.

"Without the motivation of profit, most of what we have today would not exist."

Good point. We might not have: companies that pollute without consideration for the environment (enviromental destruction in general), wars over oil, heroin dealers, SPAM, telemarketers calling during dinner, exploitation of people in third world countries, third world countries, organised crimes, girls being kidnapped and sold as sex slaves, N' Sync, corruption, reality TV, diseases that nobody can get funding to develop cures simply 'cause it isn't profitable, Bank and Insurance Companies that screw over their customers....hmm am I missing anything here?

Best Personal Diary Blog: Belle De Jour . The Diary of a London Call Girl is now retired after Belle got a book offer, but that was a sad end. Belle was never shy about detailing her fascinating professional and personal life, and she possesses a great turn of phrase and a fantastically dry wit.

It's been an eventful uneventful week in my love life. Which is to say, not a lot of note has happened, but plenty of conversations have been had over drinks drunk, and plenty of thoughts have been thunk. Here is a summary:

1. Shower Head still on holiday. He sends me shockingly pornographic texts daily.

On the one hand, is good: he's still interested and thinking of me. On the other hand, is bad: may have to explain rope burns in near future. Must craft good excuse for wearing long sleeves in July.

Most In-Depth JoeUser Blog: Tbone 4 Justice. Not sure where Tbone’s disappeared to, but we want you back.

My Best Article: Lesbians on Children's TV . About Playschool daring to show a child with its lesbian parents and the ridiculous furore it caused. It was too sarcastic for the papers to publish apparently, but it was the best letter I'd ever written I reckon.

Most Controversial Blog: Sir Peter Maxwell. Although Muggaz and Littlewhip gave Peter a good run for his money, it was Sir Peter who got himself banned and stayed banned. Like the jester who dares to make fun of the King, Peter’s sense of humour was challenging but entertaining.

My Nazi Speech Caused A Riot - As I have previously revealed, my appearance at Lord Rathborne’s party was more momentous than the appearance of Jesus after his crucifixion. Now I will reveal the shocking events of my guest speech that caused a racially fuelled riot. But first, I shall describe how I mounted Vanessa before taking to the stage to give my speech
Best News Outlet: Lateline with Tony Jones. Tony roasts politicians on both sides of politics, playing devils’ advocate, engaging in robust debate, as all journos in a fully-functioning democracy should.

Most Ridiculously Neo-McCarthyist Red Under the Bed Comment of the Year: A lot of my forum contributors ran close but this takes the cake: “I saw tanks in the streets. I saw communism with my own eyes”. Governor Arnie paints a powerful picture but he actually left Austria during the late 60s, when conservatives ruled the land. But jeez it sounds scary that communism shit, whatever it is.

Best Bushism: “"They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

Best Political Song: [These Kids by the Modern Day Poets Joel Turner grew up in Brisbane, too poor to afford instruments, so he taught himself to beatbox in order to make music. He then produced a rap about how life on the streets and in poorer neighbourhoods is hard and often inevitably leads to crime, and seeks to point out the way the system creates these problems.

Oh why, so many die coz in their eyes
The mistake they made, cant be erased the only way out is to take their life
And if they dont do it sudden then they'll do it slowly
Polluting themselves with drugs, because they on this world lonely
So we as a nation just class 'em as a waste of space

Best Political Cartoon: 2 equal winners:
1. The Howard Youth by Bill Leak in The Australian. According to the Australian Press Council, who adjudicated over a complaint about the cartoon, the cartoon “was a comment on John Howard's government's decision that only schools that fly the Australian flag will receive federal funding” and “depicts the Prime Minister leading a group of young people in a Nazi-style salute of the Australian flag”. It shocked but it also made the point about how many of us feel about Howard’s demands for unquestioning patriotism.
2. Effecting Change by Andrew Weedon in The Big Issue. When Peter Garrett joined the ALP instead of the Greens, with the statement that you have to be pragmatic if you want to effect change, Weedon drew a man sitting in front of a telly watching Garrett, saying something like this: “As I watched Peter Garrett towering over the puny journalists like a God, I was convinced by his pragmatic charisma. How I had loved the Oils, how I loved him now. I listened to what he had to say and found myself utterly convinced by what he had to say. Pine Gap is important for our security. Old growth logging’s not so bad if Mark Latham says so. How naive I had been all these years. You do have to be pragmatic if you want to effect change. As I shed these beliefs like old skin I sat back and thought ‘Look – he’s right. Even on his first day, he’s effecting change”.

Best Docco: Weeping Camel. This docco is about a Mongolian desert tribe and what they do when one of their mother camels rejects its offspring. Amazingly, the tribe sing a song as part of a ceremony and by the end, the mother is being affectionate to its child and allowing it to breast feed.

Best Film: Pirates of the Carribbean. Johnny Depp is hilariously pantomimic and camp and Rush is fantastically dark.

Best Song: Time Is Running Out by the Muse. Crashing guitars and beautiful falsetto.

Best TV Show: Enough Rope . Denton is once again insightful, humorous and intelligent, providing welcome relief from the incessant barrage of reality TV pap.

Comments

KellyW0498

on Dec 29, 2004

I love these kind of articles. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and the links. They look really interesting.
Happy New Year..
KellyW

Silver_and_Jade_Tears

on Dec 29, 2004

Myrrander has a self-deprecating style of humour and also argues her case for the Left extremely well.

Just thought you should know that Myrr is a he, not a she.

Champas Socialist

on Dec 29, 2004

Thanks Silver. I actually knew that but I keep forgetting.When I first started reading Myrr, I for some reasoin assumed he was a she and I can't shake that impression. Oh well, I don't believe in gender anyway.

Sir Peter Maxwell

on Dec 30, 2004

Good show old chap. I like many other misunderstood prophets, am only appreciated after my work is completed, in this case after my banishment from Joeuser.

"Oh well, I don't believe in gender anyway"

Lady-boy are you? A bit of both old chap, not for me but each to their own.

Silver_and_Jade_Tears

on Dec 30, 2004

I like many other misunderstood prophets, am only appreciated after my work is completed

It isn't complete yet...you are still alive...

Sir Peter Maxwell

on Dec 31, 2004

It isn't complete yet...you are still alive...

I was referring to my Joeuser articles.

FishHead

on Jan 01, 2005

Happy new year etc..

I happen to personally know Joel and his brother Tim, who actually wrote the song after a friend commited suicide. There was no politics in mind with the said quote, just a reflection on society. Feel free to polticise it though.

Muggaz

on Jan 01, 2005

Happy New Years mate

Champas Socialist

on Jan 01, 2005

Thanks Muggaz and FH, happy ny to you too. My definition of protest song/political song is fairly broad as was discussed when I did the list of top 20 protest songs of all time (see my top articles) so while I can understand your saying it's unpolitical, I would call this political:

"So we as a nation just class 'em as a waste of space
And if they don't help the economy then strip 'em naked
Put 'em on the streets 'n make sure the police hate 'em
And feed the public phony information on the evening news"

My definition of political goes beyond simply the opinions and actions of our elected representatives to include the institutions run indirectly by our politicians and also including the way our society works, power relations (remembering that I'm a Foucauldian so my definition of power is not just which people have power but how is power exercised by everyone - to explain it poorly).

dynamaso

on Jan 01, 2005

Champas,

Great post. Hope you had a fantastic New Year. All the best for 2005. Keep 'em on their guard...

Cheers,

Maso

Champas Socialist

on Jan 01, 2005

Thanks dynam'o. Happy New Year.

Francisco Toteli

on Jun 10, 2005

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