Flogging the Honolulu Weakly

[LikaNui]

Okay, campers, today's Weakly is the heavily dreaded SEX SURVEY issue.

Let the floggings begin!

[kimo55]

Re: Flogging the Honolulu Weakly

today's Weakly is the heavily dreaded SEX SURVEY issue.

and it's not just an issue with the results of a sex survey... which is just an excuse to say: "get yer freak on"
ugh.
and allow the rag to degenerate towards a sleazoid level I suppose it wants to be identified with;
Rubber p#n!$ dildo on the front cover, along with dozens of sleazy slogans. Smarmy argumentative rebuttals and comments directed at the respondents' answers, making us realise, they didn't want to hear what the readers thought in the first place.
making us think;
why read the rag in da first place?
Why support the advertisers who support this indecency?
Crap 'n' junk all throughout.
Inside back cover, a prepubescent's incredibly disrespectful review of a sacred ancient Hawaiian pohaku, Kauleonanahoa.

[pzarquon]

Re: Flogging the Honolulu Weakly

Okay, campers, today's Weakly is the heavily dreaded SEX SURVEY issue.

Great. Now I'll have to hunt down a copy.

I see by Kimo's response, though, that they couldn't resist asserting their superiority by inserting commentary into their reporting of the results (similar to the "we're cooler than you" smarmfest that was their "Best of Honolulu" issue... ironic since no one takes those rankings seriously anyway).

[kimo55]

Re: Flogging the Honolulu Weakly

Great. Now I'll have to hunt down a copy.

soooo... I suppose they got what they wanted...
they prolly figgah on that famous Wilde quote which I... uh... quote, again:
"There is only one thing in the world that is worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."

[Albert]

Re: Flogging the Honolulu Weakly

It is an especially lame issue.

[lorider]

Re: Flogging the Honolulu Weakly

It is an especially lame issue.

(is there an echo in here?)

The last one, on the MIA thing, was pretty good, in their defense. But the sex thing isn't even offensive...it's just ridiculous, stupid, juvenile, whatever.

[pzarquon]

Re: Flogging the Honolulu Weakly

Wow. You ain't kidding. I couldn't even really flip through it. It was instantly downhill from the cliche cover design (and tacky dildo photo) on. The sad thing is, they'll probably take any criticism as bravely "stirring controversy," when really all there is to be said is, "terrible."

I feel really bad for Bev Keever. Her piece on UH secrecy deserved to be read by more people than will pick up this issue.

[lavagal]

Re: Flogging the Honolulu Weakly

Percentages are provided, but of how many? Knock the dailies and TV news but when they conduct surveys they disclose how many responses they get. Here I'm assuming the staff was required to participate. And then who else? The pathetically lonely and bored? These stories will make great clips for the writers, dontcha think?

[lorider]

Re: Flogging the Honolulu Weakly

"I feel really bad for Bev Keever. Her piece on UH secrecy deserved to be read by more people than will pick up this issue."

That's a great point, and I agree. An outstanding piece by Keever, one that - tenure or no - took some courage, and she gets shafted by the Porn Issue.

[kimo55]

Re: Flogging the Honolulu Weakly

It is an especially lame issue. But the sex thing isn't even offensive..

To you it is not.
But don't be so myopic and deific as to confuse your standards and recitations as anything anywhere near absolute judgement.

Others may very well find it quite offensive.
and their perception is no more nor less valid than yours.

[Kalihiboy]

Re: Flogging the Honolulu Weakly

Well the Weakly is lining yet more bird cages this week and the white stuff coming out of the birds has nothing to do with sex.

KalihiBoy

[lorider]

Re: Flogging the Honolulu Weakly

first we get this:

"and allow the rag to degenerate towards a sleazoid level I suppose it wants to be identified with;
Rubber p#n!$ dildo on the front cover, along with dozens of sleazy slogans. Smarmy argumentative rebuttals and comments directed at the respondents' answers, making us realise, they didn't want to hear what the readers thought in the first place.
making us think;
why read the rag in da first place?
Why support the advertisers who support this indecency?
Crap 'n' junk all throughout.
Inside back cover, a prepubescent's incredibly disrespectful review of a sacred ancient Hawaiian pohaku, Kauleonanahoa."


and then this:

[QUOTE=kimo55]To you it is not.
But don't be so myopic and deific as to confuse your standards and recitations as anything anywhere near absolute judgement.


lol. I have no problem with you going after me at every opportunity, but please...at least try a little harder.

[kimo55]

Re: Flogging the Honolulu Weakly

lol. I have no problem with you going after me at every opportunity, but please...at least try a little harder.

You have my full effort.


and stop calling me "lol".

[AbsolutChaos]

Re: Flogging the Honolulu Weakly

To you it is not.
But don't be so myopic and deific as to confuse your standards and recitations as anything anywhere near absolute judgement.

Others may very well find it quite offensive.
and their perception is no more nor less valid than yours.

I happen to share Iorider’s opinion that “it is an especially lame issue. But the sex thing isn’t even offensive...it's just ridiculous, stupid, juvenile, whatever”

And since those words were written by Iorider, doesn’t it imply that it IS Iorider’s opinion, not a judgement on everyone’s moral system? The quote did not say “but the sex thing isn’t even offensive TO ANYONE or SHOULDN’T be offensive to anyone.” If I recall correctly from my many English classes (and maybe some of you recall this as well), if an opinion is clearly written my one person, that person does not have to add “I think,” (or in this case “to me” at the end of Iorider’s statement) to every sentence in order to clarify that it is the opinion held by that one person alone--that fact is implied, especially since this is a message board comprised almost entirely of opinions, last I checked. For me PERSONALLY, the sex survey was not offensive, but I can understand if others find it so.

Geesh. So as a result of Kimo’s response of “To you it is not. But don’t be so myopic and deific as to confuse your standards and recitations as anything anywhere near absolute judgement,” let me preface my opinion with the following qualification first, so that there is not confusion, as I don’t want to be accused of also being “myopic” and “deific” or of implying “absolute judgement:”

The following statement, as it appears under the name of Absolut Chaos, is the opinion of Absolut Chaos only, and is in no way meant to imply that everyone else shares or should share her opinion. The following opinion, as simply an opinion, is perhaps an “Absolut opinion,” as it was written by Absolut Chaos, but it is NOT an “absolut judgement” upon the morality standards of others. Absolut Chaos does not in any way consider herself an all-knowing being, and as such, accepts and welcomes all arguments against her statements, respects opinions that are different from her own, and if her statements may come across in any way as “myopic,” or “deific” or as an “absolute judgement” upon others, please assume she was a victim of her own bad/hasty writing, and please ask her to explain what she means with more clarity.

There. Now where was I? Ah yes, my actual opinion on the sex survey...

As I stated in a previous post on another subject, it’s simply yet another desperate bid for “hipness” that once again failed miserably IN MY OPINON (despite my preface, I still feel paranoid, so there you are), but it will achieve the Weakly’s aims of maintaining readers (in my opinion), since people will pick it up to reinforce their already formed idea of the validity/invalidity of the Honolulu Weekly as a paper with its hand on the pulse of “today’s Hawaii.” I also suspect there are many well-educated adults out there who are curious to “discover” what others around them think on the topic of sex, and while these adults may eventually find the content to be pointless, rehashed fluff after they read the actual article, they won’t be able to resist their initial curiosity and impulse to pick up that issue of the HW. It also appears (to me) as another lame attempt to maintain readership by drawing in the younger generation, and sadly (I fear), it will probably work. After all, “sex sells,” does it not? And after all, here we all are, discussing that issue...bad publicity is better than no publicity to the Honolulu Weakly (at least it appears to me that way).

Honolulu Weakly strikes me as being a paper with a conflicting identity crisis—on one hand it wants to be “cutting edge” by discussing “controversial topics,” such as sex, but then it has nothing new or thought-provoking to say on any of these subjects. At the same time, it attempts to cover some “actual legitimate news” (or what in my opinion constitutes actual legitimate news), such as the Bev Keaver’s “UH Secrecy” piece, but since such information isn’t “hip” enough, HW chooses to bury it behind a giant dildo on the cover. Is HW trying to be HI’s answer to Cosmo magazine? Or is it deluded into thinking that a sex survey (which Cosmo features on their cover every month), if covered by a “newspaper,” turns the subject into deep investigative journalism? I have so many rhetorical questions...

[lorider]

Re: Flogging the Honolulu Weakly

Those are good questions, Absolut (and thanks for stating the obvious about the nature of opinion...ironically, the only way you could be confused about that question would be if you assumed that in saying "offensive," you were describing an intrinsic property of a thing, rather than your own state of "offendedness.")

I think the Weekly is lost. They seem to have eased off on the relentless advocacy, which imo is a good thing. unfortunately they've replaced it with magazine style editorial focus. Most of the covers and many of the features are much more like something you'd read in Honolulu Magazine than in the Bay Guardian or the Village Voice. I guess that's okay but in my mind it's supposed to be a weekly newspaper, not a weekly magazine.