Posts by nzlemming
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Hard News: The Base, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
Start working on changing, then where does he stop being himself ?
I don't mean he needs to change himself - I don't actually think he is smarmy - but he may need to make an effort to counter the perception that he is. As you say, Farrar's little gossip pieces work very well at altering perception without any truth to them.
If there's one person I'd like to smack around the chops*, it's whoever took the phrase "perception equals reality" and turned it into a prescription rather than a description. What spinmeisters do is try to manipulate your perception of an event, so that you will respond as if their perspective is factual, rather than the real facts of the matter. I think it was McLuhan who used the phrase to describe how our personal reality is formed by the perceptions we hold, rightly or wrongly. The Farrars of the world (IMHO, of course) try to get a particular view out so that people (being to lazy to do the research themselves) will accept it as gospel, rather than gossip. This is why it was so important to have Farrar's political ties acknowledged on the media pieces he writes for Stuff and his appearances on Mora's rather dire Panel. He was being perceived as an independent opinion former, whereas the reality is he's tied to the Nats very closely, pretty much hand in glove. If you don't know that, and read him accordingly, you can get a very skewed idea of what's actually happening in the Beehive.
*The other person I'd like to clout is Roger Hall, for persuading 2 generations of New Zealanders that ALL public servants were like the exaggerated characters in Glide Tme et al. The result of that is the current cuts to the public service which are going well beyond fat and into the bone. But that's for another rant. -
Hard News: The Base, in reply to Russell Brown,
Overweening ambition, I gather. He is said to rate himself quite highly. I'm sure there is in fact something in it, and he may yet have a bit to learn about personal interactions.
He does rate himself highly but, to be fair, he has every right to. He is a very capable politician and was one of the better ministers of the Clark government. And I think you're spot on with the personal relationships issue.
My mum thinks he's arrogant and smarmy. So there's that to work on too.
Arrogant? Maybe but with some cause. Smarmy? I don't think so, but that's a perception thing so if some get him that way it is something he has to work on.
But as I said in describing the Foo session that unfortunately had way too much read into it by some people, Cunliffe was very impressive talking about economic policy.
Cunliffe knows his stuff, no doubt. He can actually be very personable and agreeable. But his fool-tolerance level is very low and it's noticeable when exceeded. I think too many people (me included) said "there goes a future PM" when he was getting stuck into splitting Telecom and he's come to believe that it's his by right.
I really liked the speech. I'm with Ben, I don't see it as a leadership challenge - that's Farrar's fantasy only - but as a positive party speech.
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Hard News: Telling stories about us, in reply to Russell Brown,
To be fair, that's probably because a large promotion of those of us in the all-important target demographics do want that.
Yeah, nah. Do we actually get the choice? If you don't have access to Sky or TelstraSky, or one of the few places that Freeview actually show (j/k) then this crap is all you get. It's a self-fulling prophecy - "this crap is what they watch so we'll give them more of this crap".
Most of the "reality" crap is purchased because it's cheap to make, and therefore (theoretically) cheaper to purchase. It's there to bookend ads, so the programmers don't care if it's any good or not. Most people will watch whatever is put in front of them, and they're encouraged to do so by the hype and bullshit that the channels throw at them about upcoming shows. Even otherwise intelligent people seem to tweet about shit like Project Runway or Masterchef Rotovegas or somesuch, so they must be watching it, god help them.
We don't, in our house. Telly watching time is tea time - 8:30ish - and none of it is "reality television" and never has been. There's some stuff we'll watch in realtime (Homeland was awesome!) and when there isn't, we'll pick up something we've recorded that was broadcast at an inconvenient time. I do wonder sometimes why we have cable TV and a large screen when we watch so little, but I like to enjoy the stuff I do watch and I can always hook a computer up to the screen when I want to. Mainstream TV is pretty much "bread and circuses" as far as I can see, with sweet FA bread involved.
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OnPoint: Peek-a-boo, I can't recall…, in reply to Jolisa,
Those Chrisco ads always made me snigger for just that reason. Unlike the ads for steel house framing called "zog" that just make me go WTF??? Can no-one use Google at these companies?
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Hard News: Killing Volume, in reply to Graham Dunster,
I'm thinking about how I handle this overnight.
I can't be the only one looking forward to the morning, then ;-)
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Hard News: #JohnDotBanks and all, in reply to Hebe,
I don't think of John Key as purely a frontman. There is more substance, even though his ideology is not what I agree with -- and that he thinks differently to me about many things doesn't make him bad per se.
Then you think far better of him than I do, after viewing his flipflops, his vacillations, his reluctance to actually take a stand on anything until he's seen the polling results.
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Hard News: #JohnDotBanks and all, in reply to Bart Janssen,
So he's betting that there is no phone record, interesting gamble.
My guess is that he looked at his phone records for the period around April, found nothing and so thought he was sweet. Now Dotcom says June. heheh, we'll just see...
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Hard News: #JohnDotBanks and all, in reply to Mark Graham,
Snap survey amongst my staff – they still think Key is better than the alternatives. A vote for Goff was going backwards. Banks might be dodgy but he’s not Key, so there’s minimal transference of ickiness. Key remains clean.
Had a chat with an old colleague the other week, good bloke, otherwise intelligent, yet he tried to convince me that he'd voted for National because "their plan was better than Labour's". What it finally boiled down to, for him, was that Key had been "in business" and made a shitload of money so he must know what he's doing. It's enough to make you cry.
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Hard News: #JohnDotBanks and all, in reply to Hebe,
That is not possible with a Key National govt but it could be possible with a different National. govt.
You make the false assumption that Key is leading, when he is only fronting this National government. Joyce, Brownlee and McCully would still be there, and Collins and a few others, even if Key was forced to swallow political hemlock. He has no idea, ideals or ideology to lead with - he just wants to be PM.
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Hard News: Killing Volume, in reply to Geoff Lealand,
Actually, that was Rich you're being mildly offended at.