Posts by Christopher Dempsey
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No, but at least I think you got the little irony that you and Fiona had and still have a genuine choice about whether to marry or not, that David and I sure don't have ... something I don't think some others quite got their heads around. Sorry for the semi-threadjack.
Lemme add to that. My brother, widowed, has a choice to either get married or civil unionised. I don't have that choice at all. Discriminatory? Absolutely. My brother's sexuality gives him that choice and denies me the same choice.
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I could be really bitchy and note that a good number of the legislators who've decided (one may or the other) that I'm not fit to enter into a civil marriage with my same sex partner of 14 years, aren't exactly poster children for matrimony.
You know Craig, I never thought about this issue like this until you pointed it out. I absolutely agree. The hypocrisy is fucken unbelievable.
Another thing to add to the pile when I hear people telling me I can't marry my male partner...
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I'm voting Evo Morales for Transport Minister...
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Or try to define our national identity with kiwiana images and sporting heroes.
Sorry, I forgot to mention that Telecom should also have featured motorways running through green parkland and suburban housing as part of the national identity.
Hmm... what's some alternative images to reflect our identity?
(merely trying to drum up some Friday afternoon fun cause FFS we need it after this week...)
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Telecom's XT Network launch was, in the end, just the usual room full of people drinking free booze, but the road there was fun. CEO Paul Reynolds has presentational skills his predecessors lacked (it's simply not possible to imagine Rod Deane getting up and enthusing the way Reynolds did), and the showpiece light installation created by Michael Mizrahi and his team is an extraordinary feat. Both inside and outside the Auckland Town Hall, the projections were perfectly mapped onto the building's physical features. How did they do that?
If you're in town for the next two evenings, do go down and have a look at the Town Hall's transformation.
I saw the projection last night - very impressive.
I did think however, if Telecom were genuinely a more Kiwi switched on hip with the current cultural gesalt company then I thought what better than to have te reo words projected onto the building as well as the English ones?
They had gone the hog - liquorce allsorts anyone? Paua shells, bush, etc, so they might was well have gone the whole hog.
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Wearing my community board beanie...
As I've pointed out in a press release, Enron style accounting is expected of failed finance companies and shady firms, but not governments. It is disappointing to see the government hold itself to this standard in this issue.
Whipping said beanie off...
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I missed that one, but heard the sequel with the chair of the community board and a resident (8.15 ish). Sean's line was (paraphrase) "it must make sense, why else would the government be doing it?"
Sticking my Chair of Community Board felt lind and merino wool beanie on -
Just to clarify, I was not interviewed by Sean Plunket this morning. It would have been the Deputy Chair, Phil Chase.
Reluctanly removing said beanie....
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The Goldstein ads are somewhat sensitive - I should know cause I wrote a somewhat outraged letter to the then head of marketing at ASB, protesting one of the first Goldstein ads (around 1999) that contained the statement "Econo-MISER", alluding to the 'miserly' nature of Jews, promoting one of their products.
(A pasty letter was sent back containing no apology. Amazing.)
That ad certainly got the Jewish community in an uproar, and since then the Goldstein ads have steered clear of such behaviour.
I'm not aware that any ads are run past the Jewish community - certainly I don't think it happens for the fags, dem brown folk, or differently abled, so it's not likely to happen for the Jewish community.
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THE FOLLOWING IS MY PERSONAL OPINION..
I am angry and upset, more so than I thought I would be. I’m very angry – I want to throw something, hit something.
I wondered why I was angry; I am angry that the (little) effort I spent on a couple of Saturday mornings planting alongside Oakley Creek Te Auaunga is wasted. I’m angry that yet again, poor residents of Auckland city get stuck with shit, because you know, they don’t count . I’m angry at the loss of parkland which is vitally needed for the health and well being of residents in the area. I’m angry that a man could be so stupid as to let money be the one and only deciding criteria. I’m angry that we live in such a society that permits this to happen. I’m angry that big media is stupid beyond belief.
I am very angry.
But I have to do something with that anger. It is no use me being angry, I have to do something about that anger, use it to feed my actions against this monstrous decision. And I will.
THAT ENDS MY PERSONAL VIEW.
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Not true.
What is true is the rail line designation - that's been in place for decades. The designation does not require hundreds of houses to be demolished. It requires exactly zero houses to be demolished.
What is also true is the possible loss of houses with a cheap* surface motorway, and this has been a possibility for the last 6-7 years or so.
So, unless a decade has been shrunk to 6 or so years, not true.
*Before anyone starts hyperventilating, cheap in this sense is relative to the cost of building a motorway and the environmental/social/health costs.