Posts by Christopher Dempsey
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Hard News: Auckland's future: Keep calm,…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
To take that to the reductio ad absurdum, why not just abolish elected councillors and have Parliament set rates and decide how they are to be spent?
Parliament (#TeamKey) did. It abolished tree protection rules in the Auckland City Operative District Plan. Cue sounds of chainsaws.
Predictable outcome, many trees in former leafy suburbs turned into mulch, much to the horror of neighbourhoods.
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Hard News: It was 30 years ago today, in reply to Lilith __,
I remember Muldoon appearing on TV, interrupting the regular programme, to announce the Wage and Price Freeze of 1982-4.
Ah yes. The Wage/Price freeze that everyone got around, such as Cadbury Chocolate who simply reduced the size of their blocks and kept the same price.
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Was in 4th Form. Biology teacher had asked class on the Friday who we would vote for, everyone said Labour. Monday's biology class had brief discussion about the outcome. I remember everyone feeling excited about the Labour win.
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This is a great post, thank you Jonathan.
FWIW my take on the issue of language and 'disability' is as follows; I am deaf and have been since birth. So how I am described by the word 'disability' is of not inconsiderable importance to me.
I'm fortunate that my deafness, which is 'moderate to severe' on some scale (as in, one ear is mildly affected, the other badly affected) has enabled me to function reasonably well in society with the assistance of hearing aids (HA’s). In reality I hear some sounds without HA’s, and depending on context and situation can function, but not well, without HA’s. It’s amazing what smiling and nodding can cover though I’m never sure what I’ve agreed to. Even then, hearing, with or without HA’s, is a wearisome daily struggle; listening requires great concentration and I'm usually knackered at the end of the day.
Because of my ability to function reasonably well in society, I've always resisted, logically, the term disabled; there lies a diminished status in our society - the special services/rooms/buildings, the poor pay and job prospects, 'being petted on the head', being marginalised and patronised, etc. If pushed I say I'm deaf, which is a recent change for me - I used to say I was hard of hearing. Hard of hearing is well, like your grandfather, or uncle/aunt who's just gone a little bit hard of hearing - the normal hearing people can cope with that, and it's just granddad, or aunt who's still the same person - only a little hard of hearing. No big deal.
But deaf, that’s another whole ball game. Deaf means you cannot hear, that you have less than hearing. But that’s not me. It’s just an aspect of me, complex and multifaceted, as is everyone else. Every time I say that I’m deaf I take a risk; will I be treated differently? Mostly, no, thankfully. But why change from hard of hearing to deaf? Because hard of hearing didn’t quite cover my situation, and deaf, while awkward and limiting to me, seems to be more accurate, but not quite.
A while ago I became interested in discourse, more specifically, Foucauldian theories of discourse. Michael Foucault was a gay French philosopher who argued for a discursive construction of the world. I realised that our world, the material world that surrounds us, the institutions that we participate in, and how we 'are' (gay/straight, woman/man, deaf/hearing) are discursive products. Someone at some point in time had to talk about the idea of the computer / laptop / tablet / smartphone you are reading this on. That 'talk' lead to the artefact, and if that 'talk' is changed in some way, then the artefact is affected.
This lead to consideration of the term disabled, and it's use by non-disabled people as a general catch-all, a handy shortcut to cover all the little and big ways in which people are 'different' from the normal in some way. I'm acutely aware, being gay, of how changes in labels affect you; one day in 1986 I was a potential criminal, the next, not. That is to say, the discourse, the words used to describe me, constructed me as a criminal one day, the next, a legal person with rights. There’s a similar power in the term disabled. You are what that term encapsulates.
I analysed the term, disabled, and did some (light) etymological research. Dis means something that is negative from a 'normal' situation, a state that is something below 100% (disease, disregard, dispute). Able refers to ability to do something. To be disabled is to be negatively different from a situation of 100% 'normal'.
Clearly I’m not negatively different from normal. To my way of seeing the world, and I suspect, everyone else shares the same viewpoint, I'm actually very normal, and everyone else is abnormal. I am most definitely not disabled. I realised that if I needed to change this particular discursive construction, I needed to come up with an alternative. I choose differently abled, which more accurately describes what I am. I just have different abilities that makes up my 100% normalcy.
Differently abled describes a person who is normal but with a range of differing abilities, which essentially, is everyone. We all have differing abilities. Yes I’m deaf, but I have different abilities that aren’t immediately obvious to others, arising as a result of being deaf; I’m keenly observant to changes (I have to be) and I compensate for missing out on hearing things by reading lots.Words do matter – they construct our world in all sorts of ways, and often in unseen ways. I’m choosing to reject a word that places me in an inferior position, and choosing instead a term that more accurately describes me.
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Thanks Russell for publicising Ciclovia.
You said: "A Ciclovía – the word means “bike path” in Spanish – is a kind of riding fair, where the road is closed to cars and we all may trundle safely and freely where we please. "
Can I suggest another image? The road is open to bikes, scooters, horse riders, skaters, mobility scooters etc, everything but cars. We can think of this not as a closure, but instead as an opening!
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Hard News: Climate, money and risk, in reply to Chris Waugh,
As for what Lilith’s saying about water, surely we should be pricing water smarter to encourage dairying in areas like Waikato, Taranaki and Westland that are fairly well suited to it and discourage dairying in areas like Canterbury which are not? And shouldn’t we also be putting a cost on pollution of water supplies – both ground water and lakes and rivers – to encourage farmers to clean up their act? I have no idea how to do that, though.
Something was done: in 2009 the Land and Water Forum was set up. A wider body of 62 different stakeholders across Aotearoa contributes to a smaller body of 21 members who do research, and write up reports. The idea was to seek consensus across a number of different stakeholders (Fed Farmers/Forest and Bird/Regional Councils etc) about the (ab)use of water for different purposes. Surprisingly I believe some kind of consensus was achieved.
Three reports were done, the final being a report about the use of 'limits' to managing water resources i.e. how much nitrogen a community could accept in the local streams.
The third report went up to Government for action. But when you get Forest and Bird saying "Forest & Bird hopes that the Government will adopt all of the forum’s recommendations." it doesn't leave one at all hopeful. This is echoed by Fish and Game.
Which is disappointing but not surprising in the context of (equally a Labour-led or National-led) governmental dynamics (I suspect a run-around has been done with some powerful stakeholders directly lobbying the various Ministers personally).
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Would be cool if #BDONZ put on some bike parking facilities
Wearing my elected rep hat - learning that BDO was going in at Western Springs I immediately asked officers to require the promoter to provide lots of bike parking. For obvious reasons its such a brilliant location to bike to, and I suspect many will do so. I have repeatedly insisted to AT to ensure that they work with the promoter to provide plenty of bike parking. So I am hopeful of a positive outcome.
Doffing said hat.
The end of Beach Rd heading into Stanely St on the other hand is a mess.
A right proper mess. This part of Beach Rd is my usual route home and the surface here is pretty awful. I just kind of grit my teeth.
Where I do have a problem is on the other side, heading up Parnell Rise. The road here at leading away from the intersection is reasonably wide but for some reason, the trajectory of cars across the intersection tends to put them close to me at this point, rather than away from me. It's something to do with the alignment between each side of the intersection I think.
Further on, 10m or so, it's ok, cars usually have recovered and give me room.
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New Zealand produces an insignificant amount of greenhouse gasses, not zero, and certainly more if you count the coal we ship to other places to be burnt. And our dairy industry (and sheep) is only a fraction of that.
Let's not forget the carbon emitted from all the imported tellies, computers and what not, cars, white ware, the clothing, all the consumer goods we buy at the mall. Just because the emission happened in China means we can blithely ignore it; we can't. We should own up to all the carbon emitted from our imported consumer goods, and repatriate it, if only to see just how much carbon we really do emit.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Punk rock and…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Happily, it was all recorded and shot by Radio NZ
Radio with Pictures?
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Hard News: Friday Music: Punk rock and…, in reply to Geoff Lealand,
Replace "Jesus" with acid or E. Makes for a more interesting thought pattern.