Hard News: Dear Prudence
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The end of the story, reproduced below, makes me wonder if the Herald journalist was fired in turn while he was still working on it
I thought the word Eskimo had been omitted. :)
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A dumb question perhaps - what does NACT stand for?
Dumb answer poss but I think it is National/Act party.(I should read this first eh?)
Though I prefer the term 'Mactional'.
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Though I reckon that overstates the influence of the "M".
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Though I prefer the term 'Mactional'.
My head keeps calling it The National Muf Act.
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Completely off topic, but unintentional hilarity from Hamilton V8 promoter (and nice man) Dean Calvert in response to allegations that a corporate model surrendered her knickers during his event:
We had a big debrief at a very high level and nothing was ever raised
Heh. Story also says attention-starved Lisa Lewis was turfed out for breaching the ambush marketing parts of the event's sponsorship deals. Expecting some very clever attempts from others at the Rugby World Cup.
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A well, apropos of next-to-nothing, then:
There was a young lady of Tottenham
With no manners, or else she'd forgotten 'em
At tea at the vicars
She tore off her knickers
Because, she explained, she felt hot in 'em -
I catch most of my news from the 10" screen of my ASUS which is much admired by my age group.Two of us have had them for a few months and two of my friends are planning to buy them.
Welcome to the EEEPC team, Bruce! They are magic little machines. I can't wait for the day I can run OSX on mine ;-)
Just curious: Is yours running Windows or Xandross Linux?
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Thanks Robyn for that Ben Goldacre Youtube clip. I can use that, if I work out how to reference it.
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One of the best things about the current stripping of Auckland's democratic voice has been the gathering resistance to it.
Oh, yes... Am really enjoying the local community rag that is now so terribly concerned about "democracy" -- just not enough to bother covering local body politics in depth, which was a major reason why I threw out my ballot papers last time. AFAIC, an ill-informed vote is worse than none at all.
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Nothing like impending loss of voice to focus folks on what that actually means to them. Be great to have good media input about that, but unsurprised if not.
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I liked what Andi said. I didn't think Drinnian said anything particularly interesting at all, apart from adding a little spice to beef up visibility. The thing I don't quite understand is; Why Che? Uncle Sam makes a lot of sense as a symbol of uber capitalism and resource exploitation, but Che?
The man who fought and died in the battle for the brotherhood, resisting capitalist exploitation of communal natural resources. If Che then why not John Lennon as Jesus, or Ghandi, or someone as equally ideologically opposed to the very essence of the product being offered?It's a good gag and I've no doubt in your left leanings Russell. Aptly this week Stuff published this;
http://publicaddress.net/system/topic,1809,hard_news_dear_prudence.sm?i=120
There's little doubt that kiwis are being veritably downtrowed by the power companies. And so Powershop is a lesser evil of sorts. However I'm still lost as to why Che? If people were being told to get off the grid and resist the underlying capitalist ethos, then the image may hold more weight than this simplistic exploitation of the cool iconography of a diametrical opposite(in this case). There is certainly no reverence or respect for a great man's idealism and courage being shown in this portion of the campaign.
As Che said, to his executor "I know you've come here to kill me. Shoot, you're only killing a man"
Living in a nation where developed areas receive 24/7 heating all winter for less than $200 a season at an incredible environmental cost, it's hard to judge, Powershop will keep New Zealanders a little warmer for winters to come. However maybe next time you could photoshop yourself as Santa Claus Russell.)
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sorry, here's that link
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They are magic little machines.
They are.
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Sure, but Kyoto is a palliative at best. The changes we need are radical and require a radical rethinking of the notions of development and growth, as well as of human and environmental capital. From that broader perspective the difference between Labour and National is negligible. (And I'm a Labour voter, mind.)
The radical re-thinking needed here requires a complete change in our lifestyles, not to the mythical granola eating sandal wearing model promoted by wingnuts, but to one where we pay attention to how we live. Most people I suspect intuitively understand this.
Everything we do impacts on the environment. We have, collectively, agreed to politely ignore the true cost of impacts on the environment; in our best 'human' manner we mimmise, mitigate, wish away, pray for a technological solution, justify, wear tinted glasses, slowly go frustrated/mad, or drink our way to oblivion.
We continue to support a system that demands such behaviour, and that system binds, gags and blindfolds us so that those that are within it think it a normal and natural system, but it's not terribly hard to see that it is a system created by some for the mass to the benefit of some, and if it is a system that is created, another model can be created - one that is more just, but never compeletly just. You need injustice to have justice.
I'm not saying anything particularly new here. All the evidence is available to anyone with a brain and a broadband connection.
My choices when faced with this somewhat overwhelming, daunting seemingly monolithic beast that is wearing the world out, and not delivering what is true, good and beautiful is to choose hope. Not a blind, sunny, sunflower optimism, but a more grounded and realistic optimism.
Sigh. That, and good friends, family, food, music, art, books and wine. And PA of course. The rest is rubbish. :)
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Sure, and we're lucky enough in New Zealand to have MMP and the Greens, but in most countries who you vote won't make any material difference. In most western democracies, and a great deal of developing countries, there is nobody on the left or the right prepared to forego short term productivity and growth for the sake of building a new infrastructure.
Most European countries (France may be an exception) use proportional representation in one form or another. And most have Green parties which are growing in strength. The glaring exceptions of course are the US, UK, Canada and Australia - all of which have unfair electoral systems designed to exclude alternatives from the political process.
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Why Che?
Synonymous with "revolution"?
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Most European countries (France may be an exception) use proportional representation in one form or another. And most have Green parties which are growing in strength.
And in all those countries, with the possible exceptions of Nordic states that have always had a much greater interest in sustainability, the two main blocs, centre-right and centre-left, don't differ enough in terms of environmental policy to offer a meaninful electoral choice - not yet anyhow. Perhaps as the green parties' share of the vote keeps increasing (assuming it does, and I wouldn't bet the house on it personally), then more radical platforms will be adopted by centre-left blocs. How many electoral cycles that would even take, it's anybody's guess. I can tell you that in Italy at the moment the greens aren't even in Parliament. Even in New Zealand they might have stopped living from election to election, but only just.
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Synonymous with "revolution"?
One day a spy amongst the rebel army was discovered. It was one of the peasants who had voluntarily joined up. The traitor was unmasked and condemned to death, but nobody was prepared to carry out the execution. Che volunteered himself and wrote about it in his diary describing the size of the wound caused by the bullet, and how the bullet entered and exited the man's brain. He wrote about how calmly he slept that night, without asthma attacks.
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With Fidel's consent, Che became chief prosecutor; hundreds were summarily executed after trial.
"Executions?" Guevara told the UN General Assembly in 1964. "We execute! And we will continue executing as long as it is necessary."
And this disputed quotation via Humberto Fontova;
"To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution. And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate."
...so arguably not just revolution...
Giovanni, despite my awe at your knowledge of politics (amongst many things). You do seem to overlook the unassailable truth that politicians and political parties are merely cogs in the system, they don't offer solutions, they're not trained to provide solutions and they really if ever solve anything. As Christopher quite perfectly said;
The radical re-thinking needed here requires a complete change in our lifestyles..
"We continue to support a system that demands such behaviour, and that system binds, gags and blindfolds us so that those that are within it think it a normal and natural system, but it's not terribly hard to see that it is a system created by some for the mass to the benefit of some, and if it is a system that is created, another model can be created - one that is more just, but never compeletly just. You need injustice to have justice."
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rarely..
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You do seem to overlook the unassailable truth that politicians and political parties are merely cogs in the system, they don't offer solutions, they're not trained to provide solutions and they really if ever solve anything.
That's (also) because a system has been created that doesn't incentivise politicians to meaningfully differ from one another, or work for long term change, or even be able to effect any sort of change. We have largely unelected international institutions, free trade agreements and forms of corporate control that make local decision making close to impossible. What was Helen Clark's expression - NZ is like a cork in the ocean? I think you could say that of most countries, with the possible inclusion of China and the US. And interdependence has its advantages, too, but not when it chains us to dysfunctional financial systems and an industry that is destroying the planet.
Which is not to say that I think we're doomed, but if there is change from below it cannot take the form of progressive consumer behaviour, becase that's integral to the system. We need aggressive global political activism. Zing!
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Correction: we are doomed.
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You Zinged me there Giovanni. Aggressive global activism has its place within the system. However in the case of energy consumption I think progressive consumer behaviour is the answer and will not undermine the system. If we look at a source for domestic solar panels in NZ;
one the usual suspects... for better. I don't feel that political activism is somehow going to collect the suns energy, convert it to electricity and heat your home this winter while providing a little extra income by selling extra juice back to the corporations.
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giovanni - ARRRGH!
Time to pull up the lagoon drawbridge, arm the shotgun towers, eye all visiters *really* suspiciously and - where the phuque did I put that Tamiflu??? -
Heh. Story also says attention-starved Lisa Lewis was turfed out for breaching the ambush marketing parts of the event's sponsorship deals. Expecting some very clever attempts from others at the Rugby World Cup.
They will have to be clever because the Government has passed sweeping legislation to make most common forms of ambush marketing during the Rugby World Cup illegal.
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Broadband and internet brings us this...
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