Sunday, November 29, 2009

Mark Steyn: The Pieces Are Interchangable

From his Macleans Oct 15 column on Michael Ignatieff:

In Britain, a land with rampant property crime, undercover constables nevertheless find time to dine at curry restaurants on Friday nights to monitor adjoining tables lest someone in private conversation should make a racist remark. An author interviewed on BBC Radio expressed, very mildly and politely, some concerns about gay adoption and was investigated by Scotland Yard’s Community Safety Unit for Homophobic, Racist and Domestic Incidents. A Daily Telegraph columnist was arrested and detained in a jail cell over a joke in a speech. A Dutch legislator was invited to speak at the Palace of Westminster by a member of the House of Lords, but was banned by the government, arrested on arrival at Heathrow and deported.

From a May 8th piece in The Progressive Conservative, on the decline of America under Obama:

In Britain, a land with rampant property crime, undercover constables nevertheless find time to dine at curry restaurants on Friday nights to monitor adjoining tables lest someone in private conversation should make a racist remark. An author interviewed on BBC Radio expressed, very mildly and politely, some concerns about gay adoption and was investigated by Scotland Yard’s Community Safety Unit for Homophobic, Racist and Domestic Incidents. A Daily Telegraph columnist is arrested and detained in a jail cell over a joke in a speech. A Dutch legislator is invited to speak at the Palace of Westminster by a member of the House of Lords, but is banned by the government, arrested on arrival at Heathrow and deported.

Sweet. Paid twice for the same anecdote.

H/T CW

6 comments:

double nickel said...

Is he for or against this sort of police action? I'm thinking "for".

Holly Stick said...

Aw, come one! He changed "was" to "is" at least twice! Doesn't that make it a whole new piece?

Ti-Guy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
meddy said...

Paul Wells noted this tendancy back in 2004 --
"Mark Steyn, no fool, allows Toro to pay him for the blog posting he ran on steynonline.com last autumn."
http://tinyurl.com/2apvj6

Balbulican said...

When you ain't GOT but the one idea to start with, you gotta stretch it as far as you can. Man's gotta eat, right?

Fortunately the attention span of his readership is such that they'll never notice.

bigcitylib said...

Balb,

Actually, even a few of his Macleans readers have brought up the "one trick pony" charge.