Posts by linger
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... aside from the typo in the title (unless of course you're going for a late entry: 2007? huh, word that for a year!) ...
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er. actually, that should read two chapters on events since 1970 in the 1988 edition (the total length is less than most of the earlier chapters, and the timeline isn't neatly broken between the two, so it's best read as one unit, but nevertheless).
Sinclair is somewhat conservative in style (to about the same extent as contemporaries such as K B Cumberland), but not so much in content; on events pre-1950, there's about 90% agreement between the revised Sinclair and King's history.
OTOH the last few chapters of Sinclair dated really fast given the ideological swings and roundabouts we experienced between 1987 and 1990 -- and his attempt at examining national identity suffers by comparison with the outpouring of national self-examination that accompanied the sesqui.
(With the benefit of hindsight, we'd have to say he placed too much emphasis on the effect of the USA in NZ's future -- though he was probably still not too far off the mark if interpreted as predicting an influence of California on Auckland rather than the USA as a whole on NZ as a whole.)
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Sinclair's "A History of New Zealand" was originally published in 1959. But if you were using it in the 80s, you were probably using the 1980 revised edition. I've got a copy of the 1988 edition with me here. Dunno about "quaint", but it is certainly idiosyncratic (not necessarily a bad thing), and the dude seems to have been unfortunately reluctant to update the text significantly to engage with more recent events -- there's only one chapter (brief, sketchy, and assuming the reader already knows a lot of the context, which might have worked at the time of publication but is a bit inadequate today) on events from 1970-1987, followed by an even sketchier, speculative epilogue on national identity.
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It's a bit weird being in Japan during Christmas. I've now been trapped here 10 years in a row. Actual religious content = zero. It's not even a holiday as such (half the time I have had to attend meetings on campus on the 25th). It's more characterised by a carolling cacophony of commercialism, and an accompanying confusion of American cargo culture. Go into a supermarket and you'll see plastic nodding Santas, fir trees, and a soundtrack of Rudolph/ Jingle Bells/ etc. Many neighbourhoods put up illuminated decorations: so if I wander down the back streets, I can see the shapes of Christmas trees, Santas, reindeer, Frosty the Snowman ... and Hello Kitty ... and a giant Pooh.
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Wow, I thought, so many comments on NZ education already!
... but it turns out it's just one bamping after another ... -
Oh, the Aussies can't quite remember who originated the "lying rodent" label either, apparently. ABC transcript, 01/11/2004:
Former Queensland Liberal state management committee member, Russell Galt, says Liberal Senator, George Brandis, who originally investigated the children overboard affair, described the Prime Minister as a "lying rodent" at a meeting he attended in May last year. [...] Senator Brandis denies Mister Galt's claim [...]
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Tim -- you can say whatever you like, as an individual (with certain restrictions that apply whether or not an election is happening, e.g. regarding threats, blackmail, libel. We could argue about whether those constitute unreasonable limits on "freedom of speech"; certainly those are also laws that need to be drafted very carefully to protect the rights of all people in a balanced way).
But you can't broadcast or publish whatever you like with the same impunity. And again, that's true whether or not we're talking politics -- there always are greater restrictions on reaching a wider audience. (Possibly, there should be restrictions proportional to the audience size, as the larger the audience, the more importance should be given to the rights of the audience over those of the speaker.)
That's a crucial difference. Though it is a continuum, so there is room to argue about precisely where the boundary between "speaking" and "broadcasting" should lie for legislative purposes -- e.g., as regards using a megaphone.
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Rob -- the two tracks you've mentioned (Throwback, If God Had a Megaphone) are on a compilation tape titled "Children of the Generator". Is that the 'theatrical thing' you had in mind?
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Dark Carnival is the second Chills song on the "Scarfies" soundtrack. It didn't actually make the CD; but it's there in the movie at exactly the right time, as they're listening to Otago student radio describing the weather as "shitty... stay in bed" and not too coincidentally rigging up an electric shock device as a "deterrent".
Martin Phillips himself didn't like the track much -- it was a failed experiment where he ended up having to do almost everything without the rest of the band -- but it's one of my favourites off "Brave Words", driven as it is by the soulless relentless chug of the drum machine that continues to beat even as the song fades. -
When I worked at a stockbroker, a content filtering system was put in on mail that excluded exactly 4 words f-word, c-word, sl-word, wh-word.
i.e.: family, community, social, whanau?
Yep, I can see how those'd be unacceptable around stockbrokers.