Poneke has hung up his keyboard and deleted his blog. His actual farewell message is difficult to find, but is reproduced on the Thorndon Bubbles' RSS feed, several pages in:
Blogging has been fun. I have really enjoyed writing this blog. But writing a blog, given my occupation and family circumstances, is hard to juggle with work and family commitments.And so the sewer (who had been turning up recently and leaving their usual turds around, and reacted particularly nastily to Poneke's recent pieces criticising them) bullies another intelligent, articulate voice into silence. It's a great loss to the NZ blogosphere, and to our hopes of becoming something better.Election year makes it especially so. I am genuinely non-partisan, but the New Zealand blogsosphere is so partisan that to continue blogging would, I fear, eventually cause some other bloggers to accuse me of being partisan.
Therefore, it’s time to stop, at least for now. Thank you for reading, and especially, thank you for the huge number of comments you’ve posted in response to the articles posted here.
As for partisanship, whatever I thought of Poneke's opinions, one thing that was clear was that they were actually his, rather than being grabbed verbatim from some party's daily talking points. Like me, he was fighting for his own "team", not someone else's (to the extent he was fighting at all, rather than merely making cynical observations). Unfortunately, for some in the blogosphere, any failure to toe their party line makes you a toady and a hack. If you're not with them all the way, you're against them - a "partisan" for the other side who must be beaten into silence. And sadly, they've won again.
