Hard News: How much speech does it take?
554 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 … 8 9 10 11 12 … 23 Newer→ Last
-
uroskin, in reply to
I had to shake hands with the queen and swear allegiance to Dick Hubbard.
I had to shake hands with John Banks before I could become a NZ citizen. Still one of the most traumatic moments in my life here.
-
Che Tibby, in reply to
Bomber Bradbury called you a middle class fog horn
i have a question.
wtf does that even mean?
answers on back of postcard to the usual address. this week's spot prize: bowler hat.
-
Sacha, in reply to
Bomber Bradbury called you a middle class fog horn
and "high priest of the aesthetic left"
spot prize: Karen Walker cloth cap
-
Martin Lindberg, in reply to
I had to shake hands with John Banks before I could become a NZ citizen. Still one of the most traumatic moments in my life here.
Kerry Prendergast wasn't too scary...
-
Islander, in reply to
The free afternoons were what attracted me to the job, Geoff: I’d been working as a winder in woollen mills, start at 7am and finish at 4pm (women were not permitted to work the much more lucrative shift hours. ) Then – as a result of a letter to “The Press” complaing about the low hours posties worked – and the relatively high wages they were paid – I ditched being a winder forever. Work between 7 am & 12-1pm 6 days a week? Happy happy! Time for my art & writing? Happier! And the pay was nearly double what I got as a winder…
which is how I arrived on the Coast. I was based at Sockburn, and a notice came round listing a vacancy for senior postie at Greymouth…goodbye city traffic,
hello whitebait!Remained a senior postie for nearly 2 years, until an eye-disease (superficial punctate keratitis) meant I couldnt wear my contact lens for quite some time (and obviously couldnt go out on the road again.)
Thus began the drift south…
-
Islander, in reply to
Thanks Greg D-
-
DCBCauchi, in reply to
In the same way that AQ don’t represent Muslims. Which is a point the counterjihad movement explicitly reject. And, when you tell them to keep their thoughtcrimes to themselves, one transmogrifies into a cultural marxist.
I respect their freedom of speech, but it’s not free in the sense of being without cost.
If being a hypocrite obviated your right to free speech, no-one would be able to think anything at all.
-
Rob Hosking, in reply to
I was a postie 1986-88-ish. I don't recall being required to swear an oath. I do recall being reprimanded for swearing at one of the supervisors, but I think that is perhaps a bit different.
-
Alex Coleman, in reply to
That would be a killer point, if was advocating denying them the right to speech.
Especially if I was doing so on the basis of hypocrisy.
-
Steve Barnes, in reply to
You were a postie too? Such a noble profession–and it leaves the afternoons free for other things.
Like Drinking and Poetry frinstunce, Like Charles Bukowski An Heroic Drunk, and postie for a spell. Who's advice to aspiring writers was "Don't try"
"Somebody at one of these places [...] asked me: "What do you do? How do you write, create?" You don't, I told them. You don't try. That's very important: not to try, either for Cadillacs, creation or immortality. You wait, and if nothing happens, you wait some more. It's like a bug high on the wall. You wait for it to come to you. When it gets close enough you reach out, slap out and kill it. Or if you like its looks you make a pet out of it."
Twasn't the Drink that killed him but the creeping carcinoma, luckless leukemia, in the spring of '94
I shall now take myself off to the pub
Neighbourhood bar in Kingsland for those that wish to join me.
;-)
ETA:
Damn, a bit early, make that about 6 -
an esteemed profession the postie.
my uncles was one, until he dropped too much acid one day, and was bitten by a monkey as he tried to put letters through a door.
as you do.
<100% true story>
-
Can someone who knows about the workings of NZ politics and bureaucracy please tell me what a “white paper” and a “green paper” are? Are there any other colours?
These terms seem to be used on RNZ News as though everyone already understands their significance.
-
Islander, in reply to
And thanks Rob H - it seemed to me, at the time, to be the silliest requirement ever.
Glad to learn it had gone by the 1980s... -
The Brownie Promise, as it stood in about 1985, required a bit of mumbletymumble: I promise to do my best, to love God, to serve the Queen and my Country blahblahblah. 8 year old atheist republicans have a hard time of it.
-
Islander, in reply to
t’s like a bug high on the wall. You wait for it to come to you. When it gets close enough you reach out, slap out and kill it. Or if you like its looks you make a pet out of it.”
Yes yes yes! This is the thing 'writing courses' *dont/cant* teach.
Other famous drunk postie writers? James K. Baxter for a starter.
-
Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
Can someone who knows about the workings of NZ politics and bureaucracy please tell me what a “white paper” and a “green paper” are? Are there any other colours?These terms seem to be used on RNZ News as though everyone already understands their significance.
-
Martin Lindberg, in reply to
These terms seem to be used on RNZ News as though everyone already understands their significance.
I'd like to know too, because up until about a minute or so ago, I assumed it was something published by the Green Party.
-
Che Tibby, in reply to
green paper kind of positions ideas, white papers outline what the big-G Government is establishing as policy. AFAIK.
-
Islander, in reply to
O cool!
My family's eccentric relation claim-to-fame is a rather nasty long-dead great uncle, who liked tormenting animals. He tried this on an elephant in a large travelling circus that came to Oamaru, holding a cabbage to her - just beyond trunk-reach.
After the 3rd go, she leaned forward in her chains, grabbed him round the wrist and whip-cracked him. And then ate the dropped cabbage.
He spent several weeks in hospital. It made the national news. Other rellies rushed down with especial treats - for the elephant. We were so proud of her.
-
Marcus Turner, in reply to
Thanks Sofie. The link to “White Paper” from that page was useful, too.
These seem to be essentially jargon words, that are used in news reports as though they had common currency.
-
Sacha, in reply to
A green paper is ideal when you have no progress to offer and you want the topic to go away until after the election.
From Sofie's Wikipedia link:
a tentative government report of a proposal without any commitment to action
-
Che Tibby, in reply to
god. where to start. my family has more oddities than bus full of carne folk.
what about the uncle with a dental nurse girlfriend. she gave him a necklace of human teeth.
-
Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
And the White paper is ideal when you want to look like you are doing something when you want the topic to go away until after the election. With responses like " we think we will have to take the ideas to the people because these are things that will have an effect on the middle class" Spoken like a Minister for Social Development.
-
Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
what about the uncle with a dental nurse girlfriend. she gave him a necklace of human teeth.
My Dad made me a necklace out of sterling silver with titanium brain staples. Something for me to remember seeing as I had no memory of any of my plight.
And my Dad is the sane one in the family so eccentricity is Pa (sic) for the course really.:) -
They are from UK government practice - I assume they originally were printed on that colour paper, or are still.
A white paper in an IT technical context is a brochure, only written in more pompous language.
Post your response…
This topic is closed.