Posts by Max Rose
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So, why hasn't Key already distanced himself from Ede? If Ede was truly a rogue, going about this without political support, surely Key could have said early on "My staff know not to engage in dirty politics, but if Ede or anyone else has crossed that line then they will have to pay the consequences". I can only assume that Ede was not a lone bandit running with the whales, and there are more connections to come.
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Neneh Cherry AND Four Tet?! Glorious!
But speaking of festivals, the one I’m looking forward to is next month’s multi-city Square Wave Festicval. Billed as an electronic music festival, I was a little sceptical at first that it only referred to a limited and indie-friendly subset of electronic music (somewhere around the chillwave, vaguely post-dubstep & low-fi semi-ironic hip-hop area). There’s a lot of that, as you’d expect from A Low Hum production, and I’m looking forward to many of those sorts of act (Black City Lights, Golden Axe, Randa) as I make my way through the huge lineup there’s a lot more diversity than I first thought.
I’m really loving Roland Tings’ bouncy minimal-ish techno:
And I’m also bracing myself for Container’s raw distorted beats, especially since seeing him messing around with modulars in the doco I Dream of Wires. He comes from the punky/noise/cassette scene, but his recent material would be pretty damned danceable if you’re in the right mood:
I was hoping for a bit more on the ambient/experimental side, but I’m still plenty excited.
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Hard News: So long, and thanks for all…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Seen an electoral map of the United States of America? Almost entirely redm except for the parts where lots of people live.
The problem with us urban liberals is that we don't realise that it's not supposed to be "one person, one vote", but "one hectare, one vote".
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Hard News: So long, and thanks for all…, in reply to TracyMac,
Shall I draw a Venn diagram with little intersecting circles?
I suspect that Tom's Venn diagram consists of two non-intersecting circles: a big blue collar labelled "Waitakere Man" and a scary pink ring labelled "gay machine politicians".
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Hard News: So long, and thanks for all…, in reply to Tom Semmens,
Oh fuck off. Am I to believe you think blue collar provincial males are all bigots who are beneath your cultured urban contempt? that is so dripping with arrogance. I am completely over having wallys wailing “BIGOT” when you point out the bleeding obvious – that the Labour party no longer appears to appeal to those who actually do the labouring.
I'm not saying that: it's you who seem to be implying that, by saying that "assorted social minorities with an axe to grind" are mutually exclusive with Labour's "core constituency". And it's hard not to read "assorted social minorities" as being a dogwhistle for "anyone who's not a straight white able cis bloke".
It's quite possible that there are some "assorted social minorities with an axe to grind" who actually do some labouring. And that people who are concerned about the whole spectrum of human rights are able to spare some brain-space from worrying about piffling things such as discrimination, violence and suicide and care about wages, too.
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Hard News: So long, and thanks for all…, in reply to Tom Semmens,
Seen an electoral map of New Zealand lately? It looks like a bloc to me - a solidly blue one. Labour doesn't exist outside the main centres.
I find electorate-by-electorate maps very misleading, since the electorates themselves are often so divided. I know that breaking things down geographically by booth is statistically dodgy, but it reveals much more complex patterns within cities, and ones that don't quite back up your theory that "blue collar" areas have deserted Labour.
Whether we like it or not, Labour needs to convince large sections of blue collar New Zealand that it is still the Labour party, and not the assorted social minorities with an axe to grind party...I think Labour implies a set of core values that it needs to rediscover.
Huh. I hadn't realised that "pandering to bigots" had become a core Labour value. I was under the impression that "standing up for the oppressed" and "supporting human rights" were core Labour values, but I stand corrected.
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Up Front: The Missing Stair and the…, in reply to Hebe,
Thermonuclear, in some cases. Mine was formed by fission followed by fusion, which may have led to a chain reaction.
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Up Front: The Missing Stair and the…, in reply to Megan Wegan,
Be thankful? :)
I am :-) I know that for some people extended family are a blessing and a comfort, but it sounds like for many of you they're a minefield of bigotry, twatcockery and uncomfortable obligation. Not having any interactions with mine, since they've been on the opposite side of the planet for most of my life, has left me with the privilege of largely being able to choose the people I interact with. If anyone in my friendship circle shows signs of egregious trollery, then they're likely to get a pointedly raised eyebrow the first time, a stern calling-out the second, and a good hard shunning after that.
That's for the strict definition of Missing Stairs, but it does leave the odd person who has to be tiptoed around, and leads to us wondering "are they worth it?"
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I'm profoundly lucky that I don't have many Missing Stairs in my life, since my family are either good people or ignorable, my workplace tends towards the liberal, and a bigot wouldn't last long in my circle of friends.
But there is the occasional person who causes problems, who often goes out of their way to snark and concern-troll and make sure that if they're miserable, everyone else had to as well. On the other hand, they're a good person when they're happy, and such a core part of that group for so long. The consequences of not inviting them would be such a shitstorm of recriminations and subtweets that it's hard to face being brutally honest with them. But when people start quietly but nervously asking "Will X be there on Friday?", they become a Missing Stair.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Full-on First Person, in reply to Russell Brown,
Quite. I don't think that's the case at all.
I've just had the chance to watch the Tennis Courts video, and it looks like someone said to the director: "You know the whole Lolita thing? Simpering schoolgirl, heart-shaped glasses, ruby lips sucking a lollipop? Can you do something as far as humanly possible from that?"
Mind you, I need to listen to the lyrics more carefully. If they're full of densely allusive multilingual puns and playful metafictional devices, then maybe Tom's right about appealing to "Nabakov afficiandoes".