Posts by Andre
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We never had a chance to really play much sport other than rugby when I was a kid - that would be one of the most positive changes made in the last 3 decades to primary school sport. As a parent of a 5 and 7 year old, I find that I have to pay to let my sons be involved in sport at school though. They have to wear boots and shin pads for soccer and rugby instead of bare feet. Wearing bare feet playing in Taranaki during winter at 9am on a Saturday made more of the kids cry than the actual playing of the game but at least the parents weren't footing an extra and unnecessary bill. With no boots, no-one got hurt. My older brother gave it away when they made us wear boots - even though he was the best player in our province.
I ended up playing soccer and raised all of the money to outfit the entire club and helped ref junior games etc though didn't have kids myself at the time. We had Wynton Rufer's academy nearby and if the kids were good players they had a path forward.
My point was that compared to 1976 sport has been taken over by the PC brigade. You need money to involve your kids in sport whereas this wasn't such a pre-requisite before. Our dad was a sports-mad primary school teacher who spent hours playing and coaching sport without pay and had a brief spell playing pro rugby league. Today it feels like he'd be charging $100 an hour for his time and he'd be calling it freelancing. I do know that there are great teachers out there working extremely hard for no thanks. The work load for teachers has increased to the point that they probably just don't have the time that they used to. In a couple of years I will be a lot more expert in this topic but at the moment it seems that if you want your kids to play sport you will be charged through the nose and the kids will be wrapped in cotton wool in case someone gets hurt. There are a lot more options as far as the number of sports you can play goes. I used to play 6 sports at secondary school without it costing me more than $60 a year in subs. Today I'd be up for about $1000. One of my favourite memories is as a 6-year-old playing bullrush with the entire complement of students at Maketu Primary School. Everyone was respectful. No-one got hurt. It was great fun. You'd never see it happen today and that was partly my original point - which was a bit tongue-in-cheek and delivered without thinking it through in great depth I might add. Off the cuff even. Someone should institute a law banning those sort of comments doncha think? -
Iggy's sooooooooo cool. Only bad-asses need apply! Awesome!
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The US government has just released studies showing autism is more widespread than at first thought and they have assured the public that substantial government resources are being devoted to understanding autism... http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1927824,00.html?iid=tsmodule
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I started playing rugby as a 6 year-old. Tackle rugby. No one was badly hurt and it was a lot of fun. Rippa rugby it wasn't...
http://www.nzrugby.co.nz/SmallBlacks/RippaRugby/tabid/1006/Default.aspx -
The McCarten Ghaddafi column was awesome. He was correct in that no other media actually reported the speech's content and since his article was published McCarten has been attacked on all fronts. Reasoned debate was shut down in favour of cultural attacks on Ghaddafi. Admittedly the guy did himself no favours by ranting on for 90 minutes but some of the points he made were valid such as the unfairness of the UN Security Council's permanent members blocking anything they don't agree with. The UN is an organisation in trouble - maybe they should have listened to the guy.
The stem-cell case sounds shonky as. It sounds like a great Media7. -
@ Eddie Clark I watched the local rugby league national champ final on Maori TV and some of the Basketball on Maori TV and there is a huge amount that you just can't follow at all unless you speak the language. That's fine for some sport - but not the biggest sporting match in the last two decades that we've spent a lot of money securing the hosting rights to. The fact that most of the small towns in New Zealand won't be able to see it unless they pay for it is the thing that peeves me off the most about the issue though. And the feeling that we are being screwed over by politicians for their own vanity.
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Talking about free media: http://www.realgroove.co.nz/Giveaway/Default.aspx
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@Craig_Ranapia The bigger question of whether TVNZ's offering is worse than it was twenty years ago is a much bigger kettle of fish. TVNZ7 seems to offer a better quality programming than TVNZ on many counts. TV in NZ is going user-pays. It's that simple. We've spent a lot of tax money over many years to build the infrastructure and now we are going to be charged to view it. The free Freeview box idea is a good one but I think that it should be rolled out nationally to every home. I love the way that MySky HDI dropped from $599 to $49 to sign up as soon as freeview HDI became available. What is the real cost of the box on that basis?
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@ George Darroch - many of the towns missing out are also rugby-playing towns.
If the All Whites get through to the World Cup I think that it should be of enough national importance to screen that live free-to-air as well.
My argument is about children missing out. Going to school and having their wealthier friends ask whether or not they are watching it etc. We are encouraging a split between the haves and have-nots that seems at odds with our stated beliefs as a nation. We spend lot on encoraging kids to play sport but these events will inspire children in a way that a Push Play campaign never will.
We spent $50 million on the yachting. At least rugby is a game that most kiwi kids can participate in. The priorities are wrong. -
I've always thought that All Black games should be free and live-to-air anyway but have accepted the status quo. We are a nation built on the premise that we are all equal and that being wealthy isn't a pre-requisite to belonging.
The RWC final will be our biggest sporting event since 1987. I'm disgusted that the government is actively discriminating against those who can't afford to pay to view it. It's wrong. What do we stand for?