I would have sacked Catherine Deveny too

I have, in the past, been something of a fan of Catherine Deveny. When she started to write opinion columns, I thought she was about the most interesting writer the Age had. I follow her on Twitter (more of the later) and generally read most things she does.

There is a place for a populist, self-aware, articulate person to write opinion pieces that get people talking, positively or not. The right wing have a bunch of people like that – see Andrew Bolt. The left wing, being an earnest, dour bunch, don’t so much.

The thing is, over the last 12 months she has become less the Age’s answer to Andrew Bolt, and more the Age’s answer to Sam Newman. She’s rude, crude, totally lacking in any empathy for anyone who sits outside her world-view even slightly (see her articles about Chadstone, and others), and her “wit” is vastly over-rated, when compared to similar writers like Marieke Hardy.

Her comments about Bindi Irwin were totally offensive, and her defence about being taken out of context on twitter shows a total lack of understanding of the medium. Twitter is a public medium, not a private chat with her friends.

And no, this is not an issue of freedom of speech. She is perfectly free to say whatever she wants to on twitter or elsewhere, but if she chooses to use that freedom to say offensive, objectionable things then she ought to expect that people will be offended and object.

And she ought to expect that The Age no longer want to be associated with her opinions.

Running
14 point something kms yesterday morning and 16km this morning. This morning’s felt harder, and I thought at the time maybe I was getting tired, but it turns out I was just running a bit faster.

formspring: like twitter, but more evil

Clearly, what with this blog, email (multiple), Google Wave, text messages, google reader, facebook, twitter and the plane old phone, I don’t have enough opportunity to communicate.

Frankly, I wish I could spend more time faffing around on social media sites.

Luckily, someone has thought ahead, and kindly invented a thing called formspring.me.

The idea – if you can call it that – is that you have a box online that says “Ask me anything”. People type in questions and you answer them.

And that’s it.

You can post your answers to facebook and twitter and some sorts of blogging software (but not this one – wordpress doesn’t like iframes).

It has been called “the sociopathic crack cocaine of oversharing” but frankly, that’s a little unfair. I know plenty of crack cocaine addicts who are relatively nice to talk to.

Anyway, mine is here: www.formspring.me/jhend7

Knock yourself out.

twitter actually useful?

I know – it doesn’t sound right. Most right-thinking people look at a site like Twitter and think “fad” and “stupid tool to soothe the egos of narcissistic politicians and Gen Y”. Trust me: in 2 years time, Twitter will be so 2009.

Because, really, who wants to know what I, or anyone else, am doing at any one point in time? My family might, occasionally, my friends and workmates – from time to time. But it’s pretty limited. If they want to know what I’m thinking, they can just ask.

So, I’m not a fan.

That being said, I’ve just stumbled on a little tool that uses twitter that’s actually moderately useful. It’s called TweetTabs.

Give it a go.

You can click on the top topics, and it will show you all the tweets on that issue. You can also search for something that interests you, and then all the tweets mentioning that will show up, as they happen.

For example, I searched for “Gold Coast Marathon” and I discovered a bunch of people feeling nervous or excited, including Anna Bligh, the Premier of Queensland.

There, that was useful wasn’t it?

Running
9km scheduled with a friend this lunchtime. I’ll do another 6 km tomorrow, and that’ll be it before the big day.

Nerves
I’m starting to get butterflies in the stomach, although it could be breakfast not agreeing with me. I remember the night before the Melbourne Marathon in 2007, my stomach was so queasy I could barely force down dinner and sleep was VERY difficult. Nerves are good, but there are limits. This race is different to normal, as there are a whole lot of extra things to get stressed about – flights, accomodation, picking up the race pack, blah blah blah.

Note to self: must chill out.

they’re only going to die anyway

What’s happened to our sense of humour? eh?

Last night, on the Chaser, they ran a sketch that included Chris Taylor saying about kids dying of cancer:

there was no point in making “extravagant” and “selfish” wishes come true as the children were “only going to die anyway”.

And now everyone and his dog is up in arms, calling for their heads on a platter. Geez, get a grip! If we can’t laugh at dying children, what can we laugh at?

But seriously, last night’s episode was pretty boring. The telling moment for me was the bit in London, when the policeman stared down the Chaser guy before saying “I hope you edit this together really well and get the laughs you’re trying for”.

Ouch.

If you want something really funny, have a look at this:

Jogger Hits Tree While Tweeting, Hurtles Toward Global Infamy

Yes – it’s what you think.

Running
15.4km yesterday lunch-time at a fair clip.

Marathon prep
Gold Coast Marathon is a month from tomorrow. That’s right, a month from tomorrow. Queue nerves and panicking. Arrrrrrggggghhh…

I realistically only have this week and the next at full strength training before tapering begins. I’m looking forward to tapering, which is a good sign. I take it to mean I’ve been working hard.

Marathon goal
Now I have to start thinking about a goal time. This is always stressful, as you wonder how well you’ve been training. Do I dare go too fast and risk hitting the wall? Do I start it conservatively and leave myself with time to make up in the second half?

This time it’s complicated slightly by the fact that if I want to get a PB, I’ll have to run at least 2 minutes under 3 hours. That means running ahead of the 3 hour pacing bus – in other words – that dark cold place beyond all pacing busses.

Here’s a question for you. If you wanted to run 2:55 would you start in front of the 3 hour bus and try to stay there, potentially on your own? Or would you run with the bus for the first, say, 30km then push on ahead to make up time towards the end?

Tricksy!

nitwitter

If you’re lucky enough to have met me in the flesh, you’ll know I’m something of an introvert. Indeed, if you look up “introvert” in the dictionary, the only reason you won’t see a picture of me is because I refused to have my picture taken.

Introverts, if you didn’t know, are nice people who like to quietly think nice quiet thoughts and only speak when we’re pretty sure we’ve properly considered the question. If that happens to be 10 years later, well, so be it. At least you know if we say something we mean it.

All of this makes me a poor candidate for blogging. Hesitate, meditate, consider for an instant and your blogging moment is gone, the zeitgest has passed.

And Twitter is even worse. Twitter is like blogging, except without all the fine crafting. What you have instead is 140 character “tweats” telling anyone who’ll listen what you’re thinking at any one moment. Kevin Rudd is a very kean twitterer (and possibly twit). I signed up to his feed, and he’s on there about 35 times a day. This suggest to me an extreme case of verbal diarrhea and/or a hard-working publicity team.

I work with websites, so in the interests of professional research, I signed up yesterday, and had a play with it, getting the mobile to work and using the rather cute looking website.

Anyway, it you’re a fellow twitterer (twit?) you can now sign up to “follow” me. Just search for “henderson” and look for a familar photo.

I’ll give you a free sample, for nothing:

1:19 Writing my blog, but hope I look like I’m working… https://jruns.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/nitwitnitwit/

Fascinating eh?

Running
Awake well before the birds this morning and out for the mid-week long run. 17.4km of hilly terrain, including a couple of nasty ones on Cantebury road. I finished in 1 hour 18, which shows you how hilly it was.

It was still dark. Depressing. When are they going to stop this stoopid daylight savings thing?