Posts by Hilary Stace
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In my experience 'feminism' is not an absolute. It builds on your basic value system and you may take on this standpoint after experiencing or seeing personal or collective gender discrimination.
So there are socialist feminists, essentialist feminists (biology is destiny), (neo) liberal feminists, eco feminists etc. One of the staunchest speeches on feminism I ever heard was by Ruth Richardson at one of those early United Women's Conventions. But for her it meant she could expect a parliamentary breastfeeding room for her personal use, but she didn't support a creche for parliamentary workers. Some neo-lib feminists happily pull up the ladder behind them, which is in direct contradiction to the values of socialist feminists.
BTW if I had to label my own standpoint I would call myself a socialist/eco feminist.
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Why did we have to have all this attention to the vuvuzelas? In this house it has led to a great deal of digging through deep cupboards and finally one produced from some long forgotten game (and years before we ever heard that name). And what's more it still makes that dreadful sound, which will no doubt be shattering the quiet here on several upcoming nights.
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Sky sub - basic plus sport and my sky $81.70 per month - so still not the full package (and no magazine). And I suggest most people initially get Sky for the sport (as this household did on the understanding the sports watcher was going to pay for it ...hmmm - wonder what happened to that idea?) so I doubt whether many people have just the basic basic package. And that doesn't include the cost of the television, and electricity.
Whereas the old licence fee was about $25 per year, I recall, for everything.
So I still think that stuff made with tax payers' money, NZ on Air funding or whatever, should at least be available on free to air.
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It is easy to assume that everyone has access to pay TV. But at $80 or so a month it is just not an option for so many people, particularly those just surviving on benefits or super. I am becoming increasingly concerned about how NZ is made of two groups of people; those who can afford access to technology (pay TV, internet etc) and those who can't (and those who can don't seem to care about the others).
The programmes on Heartland would have a ready audience among those in the latter category - so instead of just accepting the corporate model we need to keep challenging it.
(I'm quite grumpy about social justice today - getting ready for the Welfare Working Group's two day public seminar next week).
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The WCC library budget is being cut while the tourism promotion and support budget goes up $9million.
If it's not going to the Cuba Street carnival where is it going? The RWC is a good assumption.
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A review of the women's medical records shows that those who had their cervical cancer treated had only a tiny risk of developing cancer while a large proportion of those who had theirs left untreated did develop it, as well as having a lot of unnecessary biopsies. That counteracts much of the Bryder thesis about best practice of the time.
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My other worry is that many students in schools are excluded from school internet use because of the access fees schools charge, or the lack of connection to places where kids are like the special needs units or special education satellite classes. The new broadband to school gate policy does not seem to address these issues..
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In 1974 our library school class visited the sole government computer. It took up most of a floor of an office block and was fed information by holes punched into cards. At this time library indexing systems often consisted of pushing knitting-type needles through holes punched in cards in catalogue drawers. But the school directors were prescient librarians (as librarians often are) and they ensured the new science of information technology was taught. (Several people from that class went on to work with Paul Reynolds on various projects in various incarnations).
By 1989 my workplace (the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography) had one computer in a smoke filled room, with orange letters on a brown screen. The records we worked with were inputted by one specially trained staff member, after everything had first been compiled and completed on paper.
I learned to extract records from that DOS-based database by carefully following three handwritten pages of instructions which included complicated boolean searching. I remember the excitement when windows arrived and as staff members gradually mastered email and other mysteries after intensive courses. (About this time universities started requiring typed and printed rather than handwritten essays - one paper I did took 15 minutes for each page to print on the dot matrix printer - as I anxiously watched the deadline approach). Soon there were the first attempts at developing websites and learning about html for creating content.
Today I can follow elections in other countries instant by instant via live bloggers or twitterers, get the latest international research papers and information from the autism community as soon as it is available, or watch, in real time, the dismal attempts of technology to stem the earth's bleeding oil a kilometre under the sea.
Yet many, even in Wellington, are excluded from all this because they cannot afford to access it, as even the public library charges an hourly rate which is too much for a beneficiary with no spare cash. So the next step is the real democratisation of information by making it accessible to all.
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Sarah - that assumes that on-line access is affordable. Reminded of that yesterday by a beneficiary friend who cannot afford a computer, let alone a phone line. His access is through internet cafes or the public library - the latter at $6 an hour makes it a luxury item when you have no disposable income.
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So what do we all think of Coronation Street's new titles and -- gasp! -- re-recorded theme tune?
If it's only just happened in the UK then we won't have to worry about it for another 18 months. They're only just going into the recession in the episodes showing here. But it's these subtle changes that are just enough to update but not scare off the loyal viewers that have been part of the C St success. But I'm not one of those dedicated viewers who can't bear to miss an episode. I just like the fact that it is there if and when you need it, unlike so much else in the world.