Posts by Chris Waugh
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Hard News: Everybody's Machiavelli, in reply to High Tory,
I view the whole manufactured Brown scandal as pure Nixon Drudge garbage. The supposedly wronged Chinese women seems to come from another Planet. She has no concept in my judgement of western truth, loyalty, justice or democratic politics. The truth for Ms Chung is what the highest bidder wants. Why do we admit such people as citizens.
I agree with your first sentence, but then, wow, what a spectacular way to both completely miss the point and signal your own racial prejudices.
#1: I thought the whole scandal was supposed to be about forcing Brown out of the mayoralty, or at least giving him as much political trouble as possible. So why focus on Chuang?
#2: Given the way they've handled their source, I'd say it's Slater and co. who don't understand "western truth, loyalty, justice or democratic politics", and given her behaviour and statements, not to mention the fact that she was taking an active part in democratic politics, Chuang has a much firmer grasp of such concepts than those she made the bad mistake of dealing with.
#3: Why do you feel the need to focus on her Chinese-ness? Is she just some mysterious, inscrutable Other in your eyes? Can you not see her as a person? And where do you get off questioning anybody's worthiness to be a New Zealand citizen?I'm disgusted by your comment.
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Hard News: Everybody's Machiavelli, in reply to SteveH,
Naturally that’s where attention has focused.
Naturally? Sure, question her motives, but if Slater and the Herald are so keen to get rid of Brown, then why not focus on his record? I would've thought that reminding everybody of that credit card thing and weaving that into a narrative of "Brown the untrustworthy abuser of mayoral privilege", with a seasoning of "crazy bugger slaps himself live on TV" (or whatever it was that happened) would be a much better strategy for getting him out of office than focussing on Chuang.
And yes, as others have pointed out, she is a player in this saga, and yes, there are legitimate questions about her motives to be asked, but I just don't get the difference in degree of scrutiny the various players are being subject to.
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Hard News: Everybody's Machiavelli, in reply to Russell Brown,
How was it anything but inevitable that her past actions would come into when the story kicked off the way it did?
And how was it anything but inevitable that the past actions of the male protagonists aren't being put on quite such prominent display? I've seen a few reminders of past mayoral and blubberly indiscretions, but nothing like what Chuang has been subject to.
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Hard News: Everybody's Machiavelli, in reply to Tim Michie,
I'm so going to get accused of concern trolling for writing this...
...but one thing that's troubling me about the coverage of this is all this minute examination of Bevan Chuang's character. We aren't Len Brown or Cameron Slater subject to the same level of armchair pseudo-psychoanalysis. Russell's mention of Weibo had me curious, and Sky Kiwi had a link. Here she is, with one single post on the issue, half of which looks like a near-identical statement to the Facebook quotations already reported (except in Chinese and while she calls out the Palino team she makes no mention of Slater), but which starts by thanking her family and friends for their support and says:
我不打算在不久的将来作出任何公开声明，对最近发生的事深表遗憾。
"I don't plan to make any public statement in the near future, I deeply regret recent events."
But maybe that was included in the Facebook statement quoted...
Anyways, perhaps everybody should just take the hint and leave her alone? Especially if the other players in this little sage aren't going to be subjected to the same close inspection?
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Strange things springing up in my neighbourhood... what is that cylindrical thing? It looks far too industrial to be sitting on what has been little more than waste land since the widening of the road wiped out the perfectly (well, almost...) good line of restaurants and cool little DVD store that were there. A friend did stumble across people apparently belonging to an underground church that met in an old building a bit further back in the same mostly waste lot, but why would they need this cylindrical thing or cellphone tower-looking thing? hmmm.... mysteries....
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Capture: Spring Breaks, in reply to Nora Leggs,
How on Earth did you get that lighting?! It looks like you time warped into a sci fi film.
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Hard News: Sick with Anger, in reply to Rob Stowell,
Thanks for the tip, Rob, I'll have a look.
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Good news on the Booker. Congratulations Eleanor Catton! I read the excerpt in the Herald - somewhere in here - and it's enough to get me intrigued, but also enough to make me wonder how well I'm going to tolerate the style of writing. Which is good, there's only one way for me to find out - guess I'm going to have to ask my mum to send me another book (although... Booker... might be enough for me to find it in China, but given China's Nobel fixation and near complete ignorance of the little countries, maybe I should just ask my mum).
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Hard News: Sick with Anger, in reply to Ross Mason,
Travelling with paralympians in an Asian country a few years ago: “You handicaps please come the front, you normal people queue at the back please.” Had cripples too at another place. But Europe still uses “handicapped” in a lot of general conversation. Translation problems probably.
I can certainly imagine that happening in China. And about 5 1/2 years ago I was judging a speech competition in which I had to ask a few questions of each participant. One couldn't seem to understand that perhaps requiring wheelchair users to phone ahead to subway stations and arranged for the lifts to be turned on, although an improvement, perhaps wasn't all that convenient, really.
Translation problems, certainly, of both the linguistic and social/cultural kind.
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Cracker: Lundy and Me., in reply to Kyle Matthews,
But I’d just as likely get some child sexual abuse case
That's what I got, and the prosecution screwed it up so the trial was abandoned. Frustrating, to say the least.
