Posts by Russell Brown
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why the bloody hell couldn't us Brits cope with a light dusting of the white stuff?
The last time I was in London, it seemed like many people just loved a light dusting of the white stuff ...
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Its very interesting that your fervent defense comes from the position of someone who was involved in the policy I was calling into question. I didn't know you were involved in that. Kinda like complaining to the cops bout what a bad job the police do.
I'm completely over this discussion, but I should make clear that I had nothing whatsoever to do with the National Library Act or the extension of legal deposit to electronic documents (which was essentially a matter of following the example of a host of similar countries), and I didn't say I did.
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so... how long till we start hearing questions about planning to mitigate global warming?
and, of course the inevitable reply, "no one was expecting these weather effects."
I think there's clearly enough risk to justify quite substantial planning along those lines. Indeed, that's the main point in the short term: if the climate is changing in this way, what are the practical issues?
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Then what are they interested in, a cultural record? If they just want that then they should pay for it out of their own money and charge admission or something to defray expenses. Like museums and libraries now are going concerns you know, as are galleries and such, oh God I know where I'm heading...Opera, who should pay?
Doug Myers once wrote a column in the Herald declaring that libraries were no use to him, and therefore not a public good. I called him an arsehole on the radio (brilliantly, he thought it was Bill Ralston, and bailed Ralston up about it at some do the next week).
My attitude towards the people in our archive institutions is a mix of deep admiration for what they do and despair at the lack of entrepreneurial spirit that comes with the territory. But I do regard public archives as immensely important.
I try and do my bit. I'm a member (unpaid) of the Sound Archives advisory board, and I participated in the National Content Strategy stuff with the National Library.
I'll keep banging on about my little policy idea: a modest contestable fund for digitisation of archive materials, that's available on request to members of the public, with all such material thereafter becoming available on a Creative Commons-style licence. There are people like Jonathan Ah Kit doing this kind of thing off their own backs (most notably in the case of the Mazengarb Report) and I'd love to see them get some support.
I'll make my point about copyright again. Any modern democracy's most important act of support for creators isn't direct funding, but the establishment and protection of copyrights. The fact that society might require a couple of copies of new works for its libraries of record, by way of reciprocation, seems reasonable to me.
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Russell's silence speaks volumes, as does anyone else who 'scoffed so loudly over the 'cost of a couple of cds'.
Sigh ... Rob (I didn't initially know who you were, but I eventually worked it out), your attitude continues to surprise me. My silence does not "speak volumes" - does it occur to you that I might actually have had work to do? Or that I got bored with being called (along with dozens of other people you have a grievance against) an "idiot", being told my work was "shit" and being baselessly accused of sponging off artists?
The way you tried to put words in the mouths of people I know better than you do was arrogant, as was your airy declaration that I don't truly understand music and therefore what would I know. And the fact that you chose to bring my autistic kids into it was just weird.
But I was prepared to let it go, only for you to declare victory. Look, I took issue with your argument, and described it as "whingeing". I'm sorry if that upset you, but that's how it seemed to me. I'm still waiting for you to make a constructive suggestion.
I won't respond in kind. But once again, take a look at your behaviour here. This is hardly the way to make friends.
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Craig declines to join the wizards' party ...
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But I do stand by the substance of my original comment - academia is full of potential conflicts of interest. I guess the most obvious is that Peter Davis didn't put his (distinguished) academic career on hold when his wife entered Parliament, let alone when she became Health Minister and, nine years later, Prime Minister. The expectation is that Clark and Davis conform to the ethical norms of their respective professions - and does anyone really want to suggest they spend what little private time they have together on professional 'pillow talk' and accidentally on purpose leaking confidential papers?
Actually, the Clark-Davis thing might be apposite in another way. In 2001, Wyatt Creech and National succeeded in convincing the media that Davis had "won a $750,000 grant", perhaps through his wife's influence. Reality: in a peer-reviewed process, he had been granted a $750,000 budget for a research project, and in fact was never going to get a cent more than his existing salary.
Creech was completely out of order. But then Trevor Mallard retaliated with baseless suggestions about the properness of the involvement of the wives of Bill English and Max Bradford and the sister of Jenny Shipley in the business of the last government. And then it got really silly.
Covered by me, here.
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Benson Pope was just on Morning Report, sounding sullen and resentful: his "none of your business either" parting shot at Sean Plunket was pretty dumb.
But I think Joanne Black is a bit over the top in claiming: "It is unnerving to learn that simply on the basis of my husband’s occupation, I might be barred from holding many (or any) of the country’s 190,000 public service jobs."
Setchell was offered (and was well within her rights to refuse) another public service job, and seems to have been an OSH and DOL spokesperson without incident.
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The Boston interview from Checkpoint is here.
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Nice job those guys - gossip blogs are so much better than gossip columns.
But I think I prefer her unretouched and looking kinda milf. Is it because I'm 45?
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