Monday, December 03, 2007

Wrong on about six levels

The asshats at the "Weekly Standard" have done a cover story on England's Conservative party titled "Not Your Father's Tories." According to Blogging Woolf, the cover illustration that goes with this story is a picture of Virginia Woolf wearing, for some incomprehensible reason, an ice hockey uniform.

Where to begin with how wrong this is? How about the fact that she and the rest of the Bloomsbury circle were so far to the left that they'd be considered Communists today? If I had to guess, I'd say the magazine chose to make the Woolf reference because her famous father, Sir Leslie Stephen, was marginally more conservative, but even this I'd say is a stretch. A prime example of journalists not bothering to do any research and not caring that they look stupid as a result.

UPDATE: Blogging Woolf has run a correction -- it turns out the Virginia-in-an-ice-hockey-uniform graphic is not supposed to be linked to the story about the Tories, but to a review of a book called "The Perfect Summer: England 1911, Just Before the Storm." This makes sense, because of Woolf's famous remark that "human character changed" in 1910.

The ice hockey outfit is still a mystery, however.

1 comment:

Misty said...

but to the majority they won't look stupid because most of the world rides in that same lazy/ignorant boat...