Posts by izogi
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Hi Rob. Which Tararua valley, if I can be so bold to ask?
up the Rimutakas’ only mountain
Do you mean the highest point? It's called a mountain range for a reason. :)
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Hard News: Helen Kelly's letter, in reply to Russell Brown,
So this is what we’re up against. And it’s what makes pinning it all on Dunne such a distraction. New Zealand’s drug policy has improved about as much as it can with the law-reform fatwa in place.
What’s driving this? Based on previous experience, is this poll driven behaviour to the extent that the current government could flip-flop if it thought it were at risk of losing support over the issue? Or is it really some kind of unbreakable ideology from those at the top? Or is it something else again, like foreign relations with the Federal US war on drugs?
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Speaker: Are we seeing the end of MSM,…, in reply to Alfie,
As a news junkie I’m definitely spending less time on Stuff nowadays, and more time on international news sites. That must surely contradict Fairfax’s goal of attracting eyeballs.
Maybe it’s stating the obvious for others here, but in recent years Stuff has increasingly become a prefix for "Stuff we found on the internet".
I also like local news, and that’s really the main reason I still visit Stuff, but at least as much as that I’d like actual journalism. Stuff’s been making it harder and harder to locate the real local journalism amongst its attempts to host viral links and videos, to republish press releases as articles with almost no vetting of bias or content, and to become a dumping ground for cheap Australian-sourced filler news (front page highlight right now) with little relevance here, but probably easily available because it’s Fairfax. Then it starts partnering with highly biased groups for producing more news, like the Taxpayers’ Union, which are there precisely to take advantage of media reluctance to write its own stories, and to me that just causes it to lose all credibility.
Also, the auto-play videos in an increasing number of stories are extremely annoying, and recently became even moreso when they decided to start playing any random video after the first one’s finished. Does anyone know if there’s a way to disable this without completely disabling Flash?
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Hard News: Mt Eden: Not a closing but an…, in reply to Russell Brown,
James Littlewood*:
Then a representative of Ngati Whatua (an iwi I have close personal ties with) accosts us.
Russell:
Mt Eden is also the highest point on the isthmus.
Are there any local cultural issues with actually standing on the top of Mount Eden generally, despite that everyone probably does it?
People standing on top of Mount Taranaki have triggered some complaints from local iwi in recent years (example). I expect the offence has probably always been there but the conflict is really only surfacing lately with highly publicised events like groups hauling up barbecues and trampolines, or reports about excessive impact near the summit.
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Polity: TPP, eh?, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
I caught the end of some bloke reporter on Story trying to pretend he was a protestor and basically lampooning everybody – very unedifying non-reporting, patronising prick ruminated on how people were just confused and angry.
I saw that too, afterwards. On Friday Julian Lee (the Story guy) then wrote a response to the criticism he received.
Prior to Toni Street’s closing about threats to babies, Seven Sharp also did exactly the same thing at the same time on the other channel. It must be fashionable. Both were really copies of a satire thing Ben Uffindel did weeks ago, but he wasn’t pretending to be a journalist at the time.
Thing is, it’s valid to point out that many protesters don’t clearly understand the detail of what they’re protesting about. What made it bad, on both channels, was the context of doing that in the middle of such a woefully narrow and highly opinionated slant that each 7pm show was presenting.
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Polity: Protesting too much: responses…, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
And we’re now seeing the children of parents who are still paying off their student loans after twenty years entering the tertiary system. They will graduate with debt, they won’t receive the help that their parents would like to give – both while they study, and when they look ahead to buying a house.
My take is that this is symptomatic of one of the fundamental problems I see with the student loan system as-is. It’s telling kids, often with no training or background in handling money, that it’s perfectly acceptable to make yourself financially insolvent whilst also having no guarantee of eventually being able to pay back the loan.
It's a dreadful example to set.
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Polity: TPP, eh?, in reply to Alfie,
Then Heather du Plessis-Allan uses her NZME platform to reinforce the line put forward by Key that the thousands of people who marched through Auckland this week didn’t know why they were there.
Also Steve:
She seems to want to blame the protesters for inconveniencing those poor motorists trying to get to their jobs in finance, insurance, selling crap to tourists or whatever it is those people do in central Auckland.
Oh the Humanity.That was bad n’ all, but for me it was trumped by Toni Street’s episodic fully-analysed conclusion on Seven Sharp that TPPA protesters could be killing babies.
Really it hasn’t been so much the prevailing MSM opinions on this which grate with me most, but that many high profile media commentators have shown a complete disrespect in reporting a protest movement that’s one of the largest for a long time. It’s much much bigger and more diverse than the niche rent-a-mob that apologists want to suggest. There are people out there who are extremely concerned or frightened about a deal about which the government’s told them NOTHING official beyond “trust us”, for years, until a massive load of info was dumped shortly before the committal. It’s no wonder people get information from where it’s available, and yet MSM just mocks dissenters as idiots instead of focusing on why this might actually be happening. -
Hard News: Fix up, young men, in reply to Deborah,
Having said that, the very public harassment that is discussed in Russell’s post… well, that does feel different to me. Something about the display of it, and thinking that it’s clever to display yourself as a harassing fool so prominently.
Am I right in thinking that there's a substantial link between this form of sexual harassment, at least, and bullying culture? (Exerting power that doesn't come from merit of the action so much as from privilege or position, or something else unrelated, or something like that.)
Is it reasonable to think that generally addressing either culture could positively affect the other? Or am I drawing a bad connection?
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Hard News: Fix up, young men, in reply to Bart Janssen,
I don’t wan’t to distract too much from this rapidly evolving thread, which is obviously serious, but I think it’s amusing that there’s now a discussion of the discussion about the discussion. Hopefully adding this 4th layer of meta-discussion doesn’t confuse things too much further. :)
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Polity: Too much to swallow on the TPP, in reply to Alfie,
Look at him up there, clearly representing New Zealand. (2:29 onwards)