Posts by Russell Brown
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I have been a long time follower of you blog and that was uncalled for from me....a bit too personal
No worries. I think I was a bit surprised at it coming from you, and was thus snippy in return.
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Oh, if anyone's puzzled about the chops reference it's a meme spawned by David Cohen in a column in 2004.
Supposedly, rather than dwelling on Labour's foul weather (the hikoi and a bad poll) I kicked for touch and wrote about my mother's cooking. Kiwiblog types regularly invoke this, invariably without having read the post in question.
Which is here.
It leads with my call (correct as it turned out) that the Daily Mirror's sensational prisoner abuse pics were fake, announces the arrival of The Fundy Post, notes the importance of which way Nanaia Mahuta would go on the F&S, criticises Clark for the "haters and wreckers" line and then gets to the recipe my mum taught me (she'd been staying with us for a week, and I had the satisfaction of making it for her, hence the mention).
The day after I wrote a loooong post about the hikoi.
So sorry if I was a but snippy above, but it's a bit lame. And Old Faithful Chops is a fucking good recipe.
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Time for a recipe RB, your mum’s chops, coffee maybe, artificial intelligence and distraction perhaps.
Oh bugger off, Raymond, that's really cheap. My post on this matter was my own, frank opinion. Read it again if you like. It's hardly a glowing review.
I just can't summon the same indignation as you over something I didn't even see. And neither, it would appear, can the alleged victim.
If I'd been running the spin, I wouldn't have bothered. Right from the start, the pointless evasiveness has been damaging. But I'm not outraged by the avoiding of a photo-op.
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Look how Labour treats some one who donates serious money to Ack. Uniie and gives a helping hand ($100 000) when they need it
It just looks like bad manners,a bad look, the sort a kid would get repremanded forThey were clearly looking to avoid a photo opportunity. That may be yet more backfiring media management, but the fact that Glenn and Clark had a private chat on the same evening suggests outrage on Glenn's behalf is misplaced.
Bugger me, it gets worse
They are going to ask him for more money
Don't think I would like to overhear that conversation or rather the replyI can't imagine that would have been said without first being discussed during their meeting. They've had that conversation, I would think.
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The animals I felt a little uncomfortable about were some of the big game beasts. Pridelands is big, but not very big for a running animal. And the organgutans looked bored.
But even if you don't like the concept, you'd have to acknowledge that Auckland Zoo is a huge advance on the grim menageries you'll still find in many parts of the world. It was a particularly dreamy day at the Zoo, but the attitude of the staff was great: there was a certain joy in it all.
And there was no shyness about politicking for animals -- you could hardly miss the posters condemning the palm oil industry's increasing toll on the orangutan.
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I know your dad wouldn't approve of the first one
I thought it was sweet, actually. Leo says he's heard another one along that same lines, but this one's better.
And we did laugh at the second one. Leo liked the part about the badger.
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And Fallowell's right -- his book has been "absurdly distorted". That's a polite way of putting it. I think that everyone who got worked up about it and attacked him now owes it to him, and themselves, to actually read the book and assess it. There was a weird, defensive, ugly nationalism playing out there.
Fallowell might want to look sideways at his publishers -- I presume it was them who released a very skewed, deliberately provocative depiction of the book in order to stir the very controversy we're seeing. Virtually identical stories appeared in NZ and Australia, obviously based on press material from the publisher.
It did work. Would there have been a cover story in the Listener or an interview with The Press without it? Not a chance.
I suppose I should read the book myself, but it doesn't seem to say a lot I don't already know, and he seems to have come looking for a country that doesn't exist any more. Although, as you pointed out in your interview with him, his mate Roger Lewis didn't do him any favours either.
But I am minded to send him a copy of Great New Zealand Argument, seeing as he mentioned Robin Hyde. Email me an address, if you have one.
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Ian, the blog world is full of cliche and bad writing, stereotypes and distortions. But studded here and there are good people writing with insight, passion and verve.
Much like the msm ;-)Is it time for Stephen Johnson's five things about blogs that no one needs to say again?
1. Mainstream, top-down, professional journalism will continue to play a vital role in covering news events, and in shaping our interpretation of those events, as it should.
2. Bloggers will grow increasingly adept at covering certain kinds of news events, but not all. They will play an increasingly important role in the interpretation of all kinds of news.3. The majority of bloggers won't be concerned with traditional news at all.
4. Professional, edited journalism will have a much higher signal-to-noise ratio than blogging; examples of sloppy, offensive, factually incorrect, or tedious writing will be abundant in the blogosphere. But diamonds in that rough will be abundant as well.
5. Blogs -- like all modes of contemporary media -- are not historically unique; they draw upon and resemble a number of past traditions and forms, depending on their focus.
'Bout nails it.
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Dad asked me to compile some of my recent favourite YouTube clips again for Public Address. Well, here they are …
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_http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=NcHR3HizRTA
Now I know there's probably a Megaman fan or two reading the blog.
http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=LFvQ6hx9Iq8&feature=related
...Probably some Mario fans as well.
http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=OHxyZaZlaOs
Now, only those who play Garry's mod will get this one. Still funny nonetheless."
http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=pJsDfLndlKU
Diet coke + Mentos = Fwoosh. But wait, What about other combinations?"
http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=hKoB0MHVBvM&feature=related
Who needs other combinations when you have a professional display of Diet Coke + Mentos?
http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=gQxuVEcV1rc
Now for another Garry's mod vid. 100 ways to die. Some damn funny ones in there too."
http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=HMpBNBWwV8U
A rather angry cat owner. Worth a fair chuckle.
http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=1eOvmWjG4CQ
Well, this one's a classic. Enjoy!
http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=gvrtap_KQ_w
And you can't forget a scare compilation …
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As someone who almost became a librarian (at the General Assembly Library), back in those dark old pre-computer days, I wonder if we really need them any more.
As a non-academic, having entered the trade of scribing straight from school, I have a particular perspective on libraries and archives.
On one hand, I'm inspired by the systematic storing of things. I really liked being walked through the NZ books conservation room at the Turnbull -- there are something like 10,000 pamphlets there, many of them part of the original Turnbull bequest. All full of ideas. How cool.
On the other, I despair of the silo mentality -- it's all about who gets the funding -- and what comes down to a lack of enterprise in the library and archive sector. I take the replication of knowledge as a given, and I look at stuff and think of cool things you could do with it. But I recently heard someone say "enterprising" like it was a bad word.
I really admire what the Humanities Research Network has done in getting New Zealand Creative Commons licenses up and running. But it needs marketing. If you go to Dave Dobbyn and ask him for just one song on a CC licence, I bet he'll do it.
Small brag: I'm on the board of nzonscreen, a screen culture archive and website (I'm trying not say "portal") that will launch later in the year. All the content we produce to go around the steamed archive works -- production info, interviews, essays -- will be available under a CC licence.
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