Posts by Hebe
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Up Front: Casual, Shallow and Meaningless, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Swan Lake
Ian, your link to the website answered a question you didn't know I was asking -- the tai chi I have been seeking . Wonderful. Thank you.
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Up Front: Casual, Shallow and Meaningless, in reply to Isabel Hitchings,
A couple of drinks next to Emma and you'll be over-sharing with the rest of us
Actually I don't drink (then I can remember what everyone said) and my real name is Peg Bundy...
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Hard News: Meme Syndicate, in reply to Sacha,
mullet
say no moreYep munted mullets. Kinda like that late night music channel on Sky.
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Hebe: you must come out the next time we go for Beers and Talking About Sex
Why thank you Emma; I could try to listen.
BTW if you need a non-braindead hairdresser try Teo at Shambhala, now in an otherworldly Thai tea garden (really) near the South Library. -
Hard News: Meme Syndicate, in reply to hamishm,
Christchurch in the 1980s? I remember my little brother using it when he had a mullet.
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Unplugged one from the archives, September 5 last year, before the psych people got John Key's ear, when everyone was still speaking out loud rather than whispering in dark alleys as now:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4096823/Bigger-earthquake-predicted-to-come
And here's a good one:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/338428/Closer-links-between-scientists-and-Civil-DefenceAnd this from late last year http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/4200738/Scientists-can-t-rule-out-fault-below-Chch
A report on the Boxing Day shake when Mr Gledhill was allowed to speak to the media: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4497142/Latest-quake-more-violent-than-first
The point of this 20-minute googling: it's obvious to me as a former journo versed in the ways of the public service that from Feb 22 on GNS have been required to have their messages "clarified" by a power greater than themselves to absorb the shockwaves of public panic. This greater "clarity" would not necessarily have led to telling the whole truth. Any of GNS' scientific conclusions may well have been almost unrecognisable by the time they left the censor's office.
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Southerly: Tower Insurance Have Some Bad…, in reply to Carol Stewart,
The "why didn't they say so" discussion does not address the core reality of an under-resourced, under-funded poor relation of a government entity suddenly having to provide cutting-edge scientific advice to the government and provide very difficult PR messages to a panicked populace with what I guess to be near-zero comms resources.
That is the scandalous aspect to me, not the poor buggers at GNS trying to do the best they can on a shoestring and some chewing gum. Now GNS are being hung out to dry at the Royal Commission.The government (of any hue) must fund GNS so it can do its job, and examine every council's hazard management plan to ensure it exists and that it is adequate.
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Southerly: Tower Insurance Have Some Bad…, in reply to Just thinking,
Me too.
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Southerly: Tower Insurance Have Some Bad…, in reply to merc,
You're getting there too.. I noticed that Kevin Furlong, a visiting US earthquakes academic who happened to be stationed at Canty Uni for the big shakes, was often loose-lipped compared to the 'official' versions from GNS etc. When the media thought to ask he, unconstrained by funding threats and Peter Gluckman, told it like he saw it, usually rapidly followed up by a 'paper over the cracks' bulletin from GNS
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Southerly: Tower Insurance Have Some Bad…, in reply to Sacha,
We did. But post Boxing Day the worsened cracks on many city buildings (I particularly noted the Press building) were passed as safe by council engineers.
I also tracked the pattern of aftershocks on quake.crowe from October on and became convinced, with my sketchy knowledge of geology and faultlines, that there were more faults under the city that had been activated by the September 4 Greendale fault unzipping.
This, combined with a knowledge of the workings of the councils, politicians and local media, impelled my husband and I to walk around the whole of the central city one day in the first week of January, looking up. What we saw horrified us: major cracks appearing in previously unblemished buildings, teetering parapets and stone geegaws , safety fences that just were not far enough out to contain any major shake debris etc, etc .
We made a plan: our children to avoid the city, areas and buildings to specifically avoid, and we planned escape routes from our usual haunts and my partner's office and the blocks around it.
That plan saved his life on Feb 22.
Am I angry about the fact that an untrained serial house renovator like myself could put some basic data together and come up with those conclusions? Yes I am. Why were Christchurch residents kept in ignorance? What has changed since?