Hi Alison,
Well, I'm puzzled too since this (and I guess this is what you're referring to) from
my previous post
>I don't know who came out with this story or why or why Kolyma is not as
well-
known as Auschwitz or the Armenian genocide is erased from most memory,
but again, those seem interrogatories directed at someone else which I could
only speculate upon. I watched a number of documentaries about Kolyma
recently and the word makes me shiver, and if Orwell had made a list of Fascists
that he had been 'fellow travellers' with, I'd have wondered or been troubled in
the same way. It occurs to me that I am perhaps troubled by these various
things, for the way in which they intersect with various preoccupations in me,
and so wonder in that sense. Not as a journalist who 'seeded' the story or a
shock horror biographer or a producer of Entertainment Tonight or as a literary
critic who evaluates works on the basis of the latest breaking bio information or
>...well, you get the idea, straw heads, and I can't really answer for all that.
is not umbrage, I just really can't answer for all that; I don't know, and much of
your argument seems to be with whomever seeded the Orwell story or the
prevalence of shock horror biographies or those who made much of Orwell's list
because it was a list of communists or socialists and not of Fascists, so writing
too briefly and perhaps with a touch of impatience, I just can't answer for all
that, particularly at the moment. I'm not taking it personally, in fact the opposite
in saying
>those seem interrogatories directed at someone else which I could
>only speculate upon
isn't that saying oh well someone else can answer this?
So ok, and my apologies too for seeming to take umbrage, I just become
impatient with this, having too much else to do,
best,
Rebecca
---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 10:07:16 +1100
>From: Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: orwell
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>Hi Rebecca
>
>I'm not heated at all, just puzzled by your umbrage. I certainly didn't
>intend anything I said in any personal way, and I'm surprised that you seem
>to be taking it so. I wasn't claiming, for instance, that you "seeded" the
>story on Orwell to the press (hence my question about being a journalist),
>and used your quote only as an instance of how, in the absence of more
>complete information, such smearing seems to work. And I thought I was
>clearly objecting to a general culture of sensationalist and manipulative
>journalism in the mass media. My apologies for any unintentional
>ambiguities.
>
>Best
>
>A
>
>On 25/1/05 9:47 AM, "Rebecca Seiferle" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Ah, well this is just weird, and that is an ad hominum question isn't it, but
>> and, no, I'm not a journalist either, and so was using "human interest" in the
>> generic way one might in conversation not from some 'technical' journalist
>> view
>> and as for my argument that giving a list of names to the government is a
>> public
>> and political action that a journalist might investigate that's based upon
>> reading
>> the newspapers and various accounts, Ellsberg's papers for instance, the
>> Watergate files, of how journalists investigate these sort of documents when
>> of
>> enough import; do I have to be claiming to be a journalist to use the phrase
>> "human interest" or to consider a list of names given to the government a
>> public
>> and political act? I don't think so. Anyway I'm bowing out of this since you
>> seem
>> to be a bit heated,
>>
>> best,
>>
>> Rebecca
>Alison Croggon
>
>Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
>Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
>Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
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