Posts by Russell Brown
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Thanks Sach and Tanya for a glimpse at a very big debate. Sacha, could you drop me an email by clicking that envelope icon below my name on the left there?
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However, promoting a view of disability as a resolutely individual “problem” to be bravely overcome is not going to work any more than it has done up until now. No matter how positive disabled job-seekers may be, it is employers’ attitudes that need to change to make the difference.
There was an Employer Award, sponsored by ACC (there's a story on the winning company here) and the fact of a 40% unemployment rate amongst disabled people in New Zealand was discussed more than once during the evening.
Non-ACC funded disabled people have a very different experience of life – as some PAS regulars can attest - and then more than half of disabled New Zealanders do not use services at all.
And that was mentioned too. There was a general theme of the right of the disabled to be able to make a social contribution.
I understand your point -- a Usability Award would be a good addition next year for one thing -- but I don't think that should have to rule out celebration. It was an amazing evening, really.
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Here's Philip:
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__I dunno. How long were the Springboks feted as world champions this time? About five minutes, by my recall.__
Might have been longer in South Africa, actually.
No, actually. They won it in September and Jake White, the coach, was on the way out from the moment his plane touched down at home. He departed in November, making no secret of his bitterness. For the SA rugby public, it wasn't on the same planet as the Boks' win of the All Blacks in RWC 95. De Villiers has hung on this year, but not much more than that.
Frankly, RWC 07 wasn't a good product -- the final stages were awful.. There were a few good games, but there wasn't a rugby occasion anywhere near as good as, say, the Munster game on this tour.
And at any rate, how long have we been feted as Tri Nations champions? Has anybody even noticed? I honestly struggle to remember from year to year.
Of course. But I always know who's holding the Bledisloe Cup. Kinda my point.
But the clincher is: how long have we been mourning losing the cup? A bloody long time, it seems to me.
I'm philosophical about it. I'd love to win it, but it's like a like a cosmic joke at the moment. It's the hysterical response that gets on my tits.
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Less and less, though, you'll agree. The World Cup may be a huge cash cow and promoting tool but I could really do without it. As much as we can say it ought not to be the only thing that matters, it pretty much is.
I dunno. How long were the Springboks feted as world champions this time? About five minutes, by my recall.
Are they, as world champions, a bigger draw than the losing quarter-finalists? Nope, not nearly.
No one seriously thinks that they're the best team in the world, still less that England were next-best.
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There is a concerted effort to be the best team ..at any time. Why else bother?
Yes. It's not like football, where anything that's not a tournament is basically a friendly match.
Things like Lions tours and Grand Slams have a long history and they still matter. It's a shame that the Tri Nations has rather cheapened the contest with our southern rivals, but there's still a hell of a lot to be said for holding the Bledisloe Cup. The idea that these things don't count, and only the World Cup does is simply wrong.
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It strikes me that we often forget exactly what happened in the fateful quarter-final.
There has never been a rugby international like it, and I doubt there ever will be.
The All Blacks' dominance of the match statistics was as comprehensive as any I can think of in a match between two major test-playing nations: 72% possession, six French lineouts stolen, command of every facet of forward play. Ali Williams played his best game in an All Black jersey. For all the running down of the reconditioning system, the evidence suggests their physical fitness was actually very good.
The back play? Not so much. And I think McCaw and the other on-field leaders did lose composure when nothing worked -- but who wouldn't? No team on the end of a statistical trouncing the way France was has ever given up only two penalties in an entire match. It won't ever happen again.
Yup, they couldn't put together a drop goal to snatch the win. But they did have both first-fives (ie: the two players who'd practised such a move) off the field injured, and the guy they did have there at the end of the game had only ever played that position at the top level because of the rotation system. They also probably figured they'd win a penalty at some point.
I think it was a team past its peak, but still good enough to win the tournament (which went on to deliver the most ugly and forgettable final stages we've ever endured in a RWC). But it was a very, very strange day in Cardiff.
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My backyard isn't public. What's public is the view from the street, which was always public.
And not exactly revealing. Having mostly grown up in Christchurch, I'm always amazed by the sheer volume of foliage that has appeared in the suburbs since I were a lad.
We looked at Fiona's old house in Bishopdale last night, which I recall as having a bare front yard. You can't even see the house from the street now.
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Rattue's column is absurd. He justifies naming Deans his coach of the year with the claim that:
The most significant achievement by far during this series was Australia's ability, under Robbie Deans, to pull back from the brink of a disaster that was facing the sport across the Tasman.
Curiously, however, Rattue has not previously written of this "disaster". Indeed, he seems to have pulled it out of his ass in a desperate attempt to justify himself.
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Craig is being disinegnuous, everyone else won't let drop, and I'm tiring of this argument.
It's too self-evident an argument to feel the need to win: there is no meaningful equivalence between Key being elected in New Zealand (did anyone, anywhere regard his Jewish heritage as an issue?) and the election of the USA's first self-identified black President amid widespread speculation about the critical obstacle that his race might present. There just isn't.
So, what are the words of the year?
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