Posts by simon g
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There ain't no shame in watching Dancing With The Stars, David. You don't have to justify your guilty pleasure. You are amongst friends. We all watch crap on TV and enjoy it.
I was popping into Public Address last night, ready for a little intellectual quickstep, and ... there were no posts between 8.30 and 10. You've all been rumba-rumbled.
PS April was robbed.
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This guy got the president to visit his campus. Now that's power.
One of these days it's going to be an expat New Zealander going gun-crazy over there. And all our movies and music and mountain-climbing and even Kevin Roberts would not make Aotearoa so famous. Kiwi travellers in the USA would no longer have to sigh and say "It's near Australia and we do speak English". We would be "on the map".
Er, add profound life/media/Andy Warhol-type comment here to finish.
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Close-Up trailer: "The worst massacre in US history".
If they don't know any history, couldn't they at least learn how to use Google?
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One News headline on Virginia Tech aftermath: "Authorities are under fire ..."
Oh dear.
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has anyone noticed that they always have experts walking past or towards the camera before they're interviewed.
and it's written in the training manual that there must be a staged shot of expert talking to the receptionist in their office.
As for the quality of "our news", the Boxing Day Tsunami was the low point. Breathtakingly, horrifically low. I want to type this next bit in CAPITALS, but I know how that grates, so please supply your own. With added profanity to taste. But understand that I am shouting here.
Huge disaster. Hundreds of thousands dead. Tragedy beyond belief. Indescribable carnage.
Response from TVNZ and TV3 - not one - not one - alteration to programming. Not one extended bulletin. No "Close-Up". Nothing. At All.
Because it was the summer holiday.
Thus did they finally forfeit their right to be called "news and current affairs". It was a national disgrace.
Done venting, thank you. We now return to normal programming ...
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Would the Herald's respondants be typical of New Zealander's current thinking, or is this just the people with too much time of their hands?
Garth George's column has been so absurd for so long that he simply isn't worth taking seriously. And the same goes for his fan club, who love every PCGM cliche they can regurgitate. There comes a point where your reaction has gone past outrage, past rebuttal, past even ridicule, to an indulgent smile and a turn of the page. He's like the old uncle in the corner who you used to argue with but now you just make him another cuppa and carry on with whatever you're doing, tuning him out as background noise.
Anyway, I think the answer to your question is that public opinion is not with George, and the tide is only going in one direction - not his.
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Let's not get sucked into the Stephen Jones Syndrome, where press reports from overseas are cherry-picked and fed to our thin-skinned public in a mutually sustaining round of fabricated outrage.
Mike Selvey is a good writer, one of many in the UK press. And in context his comments were hardly laced with vinegar. Read the coverage of England's recent Ashes debacle if you really want to see a media mauling.
But then, his reports are not filed with the "assistance" of his national cricket body.
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I enjoyed Grant's post. That c-word again ... shades of Matthew Engel in '99.
But there's an element of truth in the comments. The best cricket sides (a purist writes) have batsmen and bowlers who win Tests, and then transfer those skills to the artificial game (ODIs, Max, 20-20, next year's model ...). We certainly lack a Crowe (Lara/Tendulkar/Ponting), but at least have a Bond (Walsh/McGrath/Donald).
We can't complain really. As long as we don't turn up to watch Tests, overseas media will think of NZ as a nation of patcher-uppers with a short atention span, who are indifferent to - and average at - the Real Game. Our hero isn't Bradman, it's Chris Harris.
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After watching that TV3 "debate" last night, I've worked out why the government didn't push the bill through before Easter after all. Their cunning plan is to give Christine Rankin more air time.
"childless Prime Minister ... spitting Sue Bradford" ... boy, does she have issues.
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Stephen
There are clearly non-religious reasons to object to Bradford's bill, and many on Public Address have made those clear, in several debates (even if you don't seem to have read them).
But to characterise the religious right as simply a convenient - almost invented - target for lefties is nonsense.
They are a very large part of the activist opposition to the bill. How would you like to measure that? The number and nature of organisations opposing, the quantity of submissions, the marchers, the newspaper advertisements, media releases, the ubiquitous McCroskey et al?
That doesn't invalidate non-religious opposition, of course. But if scary fundamentalists are leading the fight - well, excuse us for pointing it out, and being a damn sight more worried about that than a relatively minor law change.