

Stephen Fry: Poles, Politeness, Politics, and Twitter (Oct. '09) - grellas
http://www.stephenfry.com/2009/10/19/poles-politeness-and-politics-in-the-age-of-twitter/

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grellas
Stephen Fry has an inimitable (though sometimes rambling) writing style that
is immensely pleasurable to read.

In effect, this piece describes the social phenomenon that is "Twitter" from
the perspective of someone who "dipped his toe" into it a year before this
writing and emerged with around 1M followers. Full of interesting insights
about how Twitter as a new development affects and alters politics, society,
etc. much the same way as the emergence of the popular press first did a
couple of centuries ago. Well worth reading for these observations alone.

The piece also includes a funny depiction of a major _faux pas_ by the author
(in an interview, about Poland and Auschwitz) and contains a classy apology
over the issue - in effect, serving as a model for how a celebrity should
properly apologize in such a case and standing in stark contrast to the non-
genuine apology one gets routinely these days from politicians, celebrities,
and other public figures.

A long and fascinating piece for those who love Mr. Fry's writing style and
insights (and I do, even though I often disagree with him on substance).

~~~
hyperbovine
I'm a huge Stephen Fry fan but I can't bring myself to read his twitterings. I
much prefer to think of him as Jeeves, not somebody who expresses oneself 140
characters.

Similarly, House was a huge letdown :-)

~~~
grellas
Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie _were_ amazing as Jeeves and Bertie, which is no
small accomplishment since the historic attempts of others (e.g., David Niven)
to capture the Woodhouse flair consistently failed.

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GiraffeNecktie
Poland was in no way responsible for the holocaust and it was a monumentally
stupid thing to say but there was, and is, a very nasty streak of anti-
semitism in Polish culture. I've spoken to Poles who suffered terribly at the
hands of the Nazis but didn't think getting rid of the Jews was such a bad
idea. Some years ago, the New Yorker magazine carried an appalling article
that documented how the people of a certain Polish village, with little more
than a nod from the Nazis, rounded up their neighbours, locked them in a barn
and burned them alive.

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idlewords
The lack of any kind of single page view for posts on that site is really
irritating. Anyone know a decent plugin that fights this annoying trend?

