Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: Walking upright again

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  • Sacha, in reply to merc,

    Auckland is really bad also with no signs of improvement on the horizon

    There's a continuous plan to fix it up over many years after the stormwater/sewage networks were run down by successive C&R councils - typically skimping on maintenance and landing their children with the bill, to keep those rates down today. The same clowns voted last time they were in power to re-sand beaches in wealthy suburbs rather than accelerating the remedial separation work. People love that shit.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report

  • merc,

    Yeah the Romans had some things right, water in, sewerage out. Oh and Maori, good water management principles. Personally I'd rather see clean seas than opera, and I like Opera.

    Since Dec 2006 • 2471 posts Report

  • Ian Dalziel, in reply to merc,

    The pipes, the pipes...

    full of raw untreated sewerage

    Sorry, my old Press Proofreader app automatically kicks in on that one:
    sewage = waste water and excrement conveyed in sewers (sewerage).
    Modern usage seems to now be allowing sewerage as a substitute for sewage, but I'll fight that to the dripping, noisome end...

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report

  • merc,

    Ian, politely, you may want to let this one go, sewer rage is never pretty.

    Since Dec 2006 • 2471 posts Report

  • Sacha, in reply to Ian Dalziel,

    my bad #poo

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report

  • Ian Dalziel, in reply to merc,

    sewer rage is never pretty

    rats....

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report

  • Joe Wylie, in reply to Ian Dalziel,

    sewer rage is never pretty

    rats….

    From the alligator patrol episode of Thomas Pynchon’s V:

    They were entering Fairing’s Parish, named after a priest who’d lived topside years ago. During the Depression of the ’30’s, in an hour of apocalyptic well-being, he had decided that the rats were going to take over after New York died . . . This being the case, Father Fairing thought it best for the rats to be given a head start – which meant conversion to the Roman Church. One night early in Roosevelt’s first term, he climbed downstairs through the nearest manhole, bringing a Baltimore Catechism, his breviary and, for reasons nobody found out, a copy of Knight’s Modern Seamanship. . . Before long he would be spiritual leader of the inheritors of the earth. He considered it small enough sacrifice on their part to provide three of their own per day for physical sustenance, in return for the spiritual nourishment he was giving them.
    Accordingly, he built himself a small shelter on one bank of the sewer. His cassock for a bed, his breviary for a pillow. Each morning he’d make a small fire from driftwood collected and set out to dry the night before. Nearby was a depression in the concrete which sat beneath a downspout, for rainwater. Here he drank and washed. After a breakfast of roast rat (“The livers,” he wrote, “are particularly succulent”) he set about his first task: learning to communicate with the rats. Presumably he succeeded. . . .
    The journal ends here. It is still preserved in an inaccessible region of the Vatican library, and in the minds of the few old-timers in the New York Sewer Department who got to see it when it was discovered. It lay on top of a brick, stone and stick cairn large enough to cover a human corpse, assembled in a stretch of 36-inch pipe near a frontier of the Parish. Next to it lay the breviary. There was no trace of the catechism or Knight’s Modern Seamanship.
    “Maybe,” said Zeitsuss’s predecessor Manfred Katz after reading the journal, “maybe they are studying the best way to leave a sinking ship.”
    The stories, by the time Profane heard them, were pretty much apocryphal and more fantasy than the record itself warranted. At no point in the twenty or so years the legend had been handed on did it occur to anyone to question the old priest’s sanity. It is this way with sewer stories. They just are. Truth or falsity don’t apply.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Ian Dalziel,

    The Chchch City Council is, as usual, sending mixed messages - they are now not being particularly helpful with Ceismic's Quake Box Project - they just don't seem to get the fact that if they're not part of the solution (and recovery), they are part of the problem...

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report

  • Hebe,

    When A City Falls is rather good. I was a reluctant attendee tonight but I left feeling up rather than down. Beautifully shot and the editing was excellent (no little achievement given the hundreds of hours of tape to wade through in a short time). Gerard captured some poetic moments amid the trauma. Well done Mr Smyth and friends.

    Christchurch • Since May 2011 • 2899 posts Report

  • Joe Wylie,

    The Rev. Mike Coleman's Martin Luther moment as he nails his open letter to NZ to the cross delivered to CERA's door at the culmination of yesterday's Show Your Colour Crusade. CERA as a Diet of Worms would confirm the experience of a number of aggrieved colour-zoned residents.

    Mike Coleman's letter can be found here.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Ian Dalziel,

    Placarding the masses...

    yesterday’s Show Your Colour Crusade.

    I'm glad to see they are still using the reverseable placard I left with them for future use - (Rateable Value is a Rort b/w Change the Government, Give Chch a Fair Shake) and now I see The Sunday Times even used it for their headline... - it heartens the recycler in me...

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report

  • Sacha, in reply to Ian Dalziel,

    Change the Government, Give Chch a Fair Shake

    nice work

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report

  • Joe Wylie, in reply to Ian Dalziel,

    I’m glad to see they are still using the reverseable placard I left with them for future use – (Rateable Value is a Rort b/w Change the Government, Give Chch a Fair Shake)

    Your handiwork.
    In action.
    I wonder if CERA will recycle those little colour-coded crosses left at their door.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Ian Dalziel, in reply to Joe Wylie,

    sub rosa crux...

    I wonder if CERA will recycle those little colour-coded crosses

    With strings attached, I'm sure they'll be very handy for
    Mr Brownlee's Travelling Puppet and Medicine Show...

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report

  • Sacha, in reply to Joe Wylie,

    ..as survey pegs

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report

  • Just thinking,

    Late night by the telly last week in a Green/Blue house and who should pop in but Ratty.
    It was the size of a smaller cat.
    As we were having a cuppa at the time. We had a wee chat with Ratty, but he left when the dog came in. They obviously have issues.

    Putaringamotu • Since Apr 2009 • 1158 posts Report

  • Sacha,

    Senior Council reps tell the #eqnz Inquiry they can't enforce quake-strengthening, get bogged down in which fraction of full compliance they'll accept.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report

  • Joe Wylie, in reply to Sacha,

    Senior Council reps tell the #eqnz Inquiry they can't enforce quake-strengthening . . .

    CERA have the power. The paranoid post-election scenario is firming up:
    Elements within the CCCouncil are effectively preparing for an Environment Canterbury-style statutory management takeover. By deliberate stalling and obstruction they are complicit in handing Brownlee the perfect excuse. Council-owned assets such as Orion will be flogged off to pay for the 'recovery'. New Year honours for the higher-profile enablers will be a likely early confirmation of this grubby little scenario.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Sacha, in reply to Joe Wylie,

    CERA have the power.

    True, but that doesn't help the rest of the country as mentioned in that story. Not that I'm saying the all too plausible scenario you describe would "help" Christchurch much either.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report

  • Joe Wylie, in reply to Sacha,

    If the rest of the country continues to buy into the current Government's 'I'm all right Jack' scenario, we're only perpetuating the complacency that's led to Christchurch's post-quake plight.

    CERA have extraordinary powers, but as a self-perpetuating bureaucracy they're not structured for the greater good of society.

    In the meantime, if you can help in any way to distribute WECAN/Mike Coleman's open letter to NZ, available here as a PDF, and here as cut 'n paste text, I believe that would go some small way to helping the rest of the country.

    From Orange Zone protester Darla Hutt's Facebook page:

    Wow ok posted the letter to New Zealand on National's facebook wall, and Jason Posted on it on John Key's wall, and what do you know, it has been removed by both. Good thing I also posted it on 3News, One News, Campbell Live ect wall's. It is a letter to New Zealand, so is it not the right of New Zealand to read it? Shame on you John Key!

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Sacha, in reply to Joe Wylie,

    Is Mike Coleman's letter available as a plain web page we can link to? Though frankly I find some of his earlier writing more compelling.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report

  • Joe Wylie, in reply to Sacha,

    Is Mike Coleman's letter available as a plain web page we can link to?

    WECAN's use of online media leaves a lot to be desired. For me this doesn't affect their credibility as an organisation, it's an indication that they need help. Direct action is desperately needed right now, and they've been more than instrumental in co-ordinating some of the most effective protest.

    In the absence of a web page I've knocked together this.

    Though frankly I find some of his earlier writing more compelling.

    I'm sure he's written better sermons, and while it's not my place to tell them so, WECAN's logo sucks. Again, the aforementioned disclaimers apply.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Ian Dalziel, in reply to Joe Wylie,

    states of head...

    I’ve knocked together this.

    I love this too - kissing the fink?

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report

  • Rob Stowell,

    while it’s not my place to tell them so, WECAN’s logo sucks

    Seldom I disagree with you, Joe, but if not you, who? So please: just tell them!

    Whakaraupo • Since Nov 2006 • 2120 posts Report

  • Joe Wylie, in reply to Rob Stowell,

    . . . if not you, who? So please: just tell them!

    Maybe you're right. Whatever they might think, it seems that the media aren't prepared to.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

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