Posts by Richard Aston
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Banks or Brown , Banks or Brown not enough choice for me.
Maybe I am delusional or naively optimistic but I'm still hoping for a third person to step into the super mayor ring , who might it be ?
How about Michelle Cullen, Helen Clarke - hey if Jim Anderson can do two jobs surely Helen can.There must be a serious outsider out there, somewhere. somehow .
Actually probably not Labour people , I've heard from some ex politicians that the Labour party is firmly shutting down any contenders from the left in an attempt to keep Browns vote in place. -
I think there can be no doubt the dirt raking on Len Brown was orchestrated, it came too close on the heals of the ministerial credit card revelations, the timing was perfect. Who were the two Manukau Councilors who raised the issue at council, whats their agenda?
Banks of course is clean because he uses the same protection method as Winston Peters ie a staffer holds the credit card and makes all the payments - staffer cards can not be traced so transparently.
That it has even got down to this level of muck raking is so shabby. The game has hardly started and someone is putting the boot in already.
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My ancestor, Richard Davis, a missionary farmer in the Bay of Islands, brought gorse to NZ in the 1820s. .... I'm sorry, but that doesn't belong in this thread, afterall it's been enormously successful.
As have rabbits , another enormously successful failure
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From a great book - West: The History of Waitakere – I offer this as a wonderful example of a great New Zealand failure perhaps or a just a classic example of “give it a crack mate”.
“ ‘experts’ blew up a 35 tonne whale stranded on a beach near Huia in the late 1940s.
The Auckland Harbour Board demolition crew decided, in their wisdom, to plug the 17.4m whale with gelignite and fuel oil and blow it up. As you do!
According to reports, a 91m plume of sand, smoke, blubber and bone rained down on the dozen or so unsuspecting spectators, who raced for cover. One 68 kg ‘steak’ flew 230m into the air but most of the carcass remained intact, despite being hurled about 6m out of the mud. Having withstood the blast, the remains proved immune even to fire.
Despite the ‘experts’ declaring the operation “highly successful – having achieved all it set out to do”, locals blubbered about the mess! However, assurances that “time, tide and sharks” would take care of the remains proved correct.
The incident inspired Waitakere’s most famous artist son – Colin McCahon – to produce Whale Beach II in September 1954.”
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um for fear of being shot or hung as a traitor
Gallipoli ?
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Does that make me a bitch?
If I said yes, would you be offended, would I then have to apologize?
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"no offense meant, no apology necessary".
Not sure I buy this and I have heard this said a few times.
The original Latin meaning for the word apology (apologia) was to speak in one's defense , in which case you Dutch man was probably right , he you are not aware of doing anything wrong - nothing to defend.
Whereas saying sorry is to feel sorrow, to feel regret for your actions - quite a different inflection.
If you actions or words have hurt someone I think it is only human to feel sorrow for having done that regardless of if you meant to cause hurt or not. In my experience most hurt given was never meant. I think its a sign of character to be able to feel and express sorrow.
The other question is - does offense = hurt. I reckon offense is another word - like sorry - that is used too lightly , hysterically at times. -
Great post Graham - your right - so many light weight apologies so few meaningful sorrys. Its a bloody hard thing to do and its a vulnerable place to go . Maybe it does take time along with courage and humility to really say sorry and mean it. Maybe we need a new word that says "I'm on my way to finding sorry , not there yet need some time" .
Its like forgiveness - another bloody hard thing to do. It never gells with me when a parent of some child killed in a crash say at the funeral they forgive the driver. I think WTF its only been 3 days and you have found forgiveness - yeah right.
I guess the length of time it takes to say sorry could be related to the depth of hurt you are apologizing for. In Hone's case I reckon 2 hours is about right - for a child murderer maybe a life time.
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without the need for anything as messy as democracy.
A boy is it ever messy !
Our Rodney who art in Auckland thinks ACT are doing all the work
Rodney seems unhappy that the tail is furiously wagging the dog but the dog isn't' doing any thing. -
I reckon the plotters should get to Pita, he is the false panel in the bookshelf.
I love the image Bruce - Pita does the political leader/friend of govt so well but their is a lot more behind him that and from what I have seen of him its deeply human and connected.