Tim Blair, Poofs, Wogs, Opera, Islamic Gays, sweet Carrie,

You have to hand it to Tim Blair, as a gadfly he gets around, and he has an unerring nose for the pongs that will please his readership - in much the same way as arum lilies manage to attract attention in their domain.

Blair rarely exposes himself or his views - it's all sly hints and innuendoes and nudges and winks and links. And as the prejudices are already in place, the links are just an invitation to further banquet on an already blinkered world view.

Take for example his nudge nudge wink wink link to Opera Vista in Huston which is using a threat letter and a press release to whip up ticket sales and donations for its current offerering. Fair enough, the work is about gays and Islam and tolerance, and the threat letter calls the organizers pigs for mixing Islam with gays, tells them to stop, and warns they'll not let them do the show. (You can see the remarkably neat, well punctuated, and well spelled threat note, and catch the details here).

So there you go, the header is Show Goes On, the Blair contribution Art meets hate in Houston, and Blair is on the side of the angels, ready to promote an opera exploring radical Islam and homosexuality, with gays coming out the winners, and evil fundamentalists slain. Though his faithful followers don't really buy it:

1. Well, it might be brave and all that, but I would be buggered if I wasted my hard-earned to go and see that.

2. Good for the Opera Vista Festival. I hope they go on and present this opera, which sounds eminently forgettable except that it stoked the ire of some Islamist Rage Boy in Houston (boy, he sure gets around doesn’t he?). They should not be wusses like the guys in Berlin who wanted to put on Marlow’s “Tamburlane” and who turned yellow at the first hint of Islamist threats.

Oh good, that means that Piss Christ wasn't such a bad work of art was it?

Well actually if you go back a little Tim seems to take a dim view of Piss Christ, and Elizabeth Farrelly using it as an example in the Bill Henson fuss:

Yeah. Piss Christ was hella enrichening.

And then here's Tim Blair pot meeting Jill Singer kettle way back in 2006:

In 1997, columnist Jill Singer argues for the display of Piss Christ:
We ... need to understand the value of artistic freedom.
In 2006, columnist Jill Singer argues against the display of Prophet toons:
Who wants a totally uncensored media run by those devoid of judgment, taste or social responsibility?

New Blair rule: Gays in opera inspiring Islamic threats good, naughty art like Piss Christ or plays featuring Jesus having gay sex with Judas (as opposed to straight sex), numbingly unprovocative in a childish way.

So naturally when the artificially boobed Carrie Prejean (now promoted to a spot on Faux Noise) saga was at its height, Blair ran under the nuanced header Listen up, Poofs, with a link to a right wing (Stockholm syndrome?) poof who indulges in a solid round of poofter bashing under the banner that poofters are allowed to bash Christian hating, misogynistic poofters, because well ... because he's a poofter who understands Christians and sympathizes with the pure-hearted Carrie speaking her honest to god bimbo mind.

Sometimes I think the only time it's handy to be an atheist is when the cultural and religious wars get conflated. A pox on all the religious houses.

Blair purports to be even handed, but he really needs to keep working with that right hook, because the left jab is nowhere to be found. Not when the sly uppercut and dab aside and blow below the belt can be delivered in witty style.

Well maybe a header like There were these two wogs fighting doesn't actually qualify as witty, so much as the kind of remark a wog hating kid might make in the jungle of a high school playground. But of course it isn't Blair making the remark, he's just referencing a story in which a woman talks about seeing a couple of wogs fighting.

Then his visitors can roll around in the coop having a right old bit of fun, getting their jollies by sending up the wogs:

1. Hey, my cuz Achmed, he goes off like a three day old kebab when the ‘roids kick in, fully sik bro.

2. She stereotypes, she mocks, is hot and is squimish around gun fire. That is my dream girl.

3. That was truly funny - the girl spoke spontaneously, clearly and in uncomplicated terms about what she saw. A fat wog and a skinny wog and a shooting.

The linked newspaper article censored her words to how she should have expressed herself.

What a stupid, stupid society we live in, allowing subjective agendas pushed by sectional interests to over-ride what really happens day to day.

Yep, truly funny. A Blair commenter speaking spontaneously, clearly and in uncomplicated terms about what he'd read (assuming Mick from the Gold Coast is a he). How to put it? Fat dickheads and thin dickheads and a lot of other dickheads blogging about a shooting and involving as you'd expect, not skippies, but wogs. WOGS. Hah hah.

It's schoolboy stuff, and Blair is the master schoolboy - I say chums it'd be a terribly good jape if we just sent all those rotten greenies and gays and wogs and true believers up in a jolly way, by revealing them to be the deadheads we all know they are (Christians, bimbos, and right wing loons of the commentariat exempted by natural Darwinian selection).

It makes me wonder why the guys at Pure Poison ever bother. Here they are again apologizing to their readers for yanking a post on the basis that it was too close to engaging in blog wars, on the high minded ground that they don't want to get involved in childish blog spats.

And a little further down they publish - under the sanctimonius header Credit where it's due - praise to Andrew Bolt for an excellent piece defending politicians spending taxpayer money on work-related travel, until they realized that Bolt would then give Peter Garrett a bash for adding to global warming by embarking on a junket to the US and Chile during the last winter break at a cost of $226,000. Well, you see, there's necessary travel, and then there's foolish global warming travel (only ever undertaken by Al Gore and Peter Garrett).

As if Bolt would ever cede a point without putting a sting in the tail.

As if Tim Blair's blog wasn't one long childish blog spat, or a spit in the direction of the liberal spittoon. And would he ever issue an apology? Well maybe under duress from a lawyer with a prospect of winning? But to liberal prats?

How's Blair handle these guys? Not directly of course. Under a header Pure Evasion, he suggests the chaps need an editor and provides a link to a blog discussing the "central clearing house for intellectual dishonesty."

But that's the Blair modus operandi, stick and jab and hint and duck and evade and name call, and link to others doing the dirty work, with the odd story about motorbikes and cars and Jeremy Clarkson for petrol heads, along with the relentless fight against environmentalism (die planet die, or should that be 'the planet, the'), presented in such a way that half the time you think Blair would just love to shove a plastic bag or two down the throat of pack raping dolphins to teach both feminists and environmentalists a lesson.

Ah well feeding the chooks helps pass the time ...