Posts by Chris Waugh
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Hard News: CELEBRITY DRUG SHOCK NEWS! AGAIN., in reply to Hebe,
Rupe is the problem; or perhaps its the people who buy his products that are the problem.
Chicken and egg. I doubt there'd be much demand for celeb gossip if the media were all high-minded and intellectual, or at least serious about their role in Keeping the Bastards in Power Honest. And yet, all they're doing is feeding the demand for gossip that is there. People have always been voyeuristic and gossipy, and I have a sneaking suspicion that the media, no matter what historical form it may have taken, has always come with an unhealthy dose of celeb gossip. We want it, so they give it to us, and because they gave us some, we want more, like lab rats hitting buttons for doses of cocaine in some experiment on the nature of addiction. And so it all spirals down Rupert's drain...
I didn't much care for either Michael Jackson or Whitney Houston. I found their music insufferably boring and saw no reason to like them as people. But on hearing of their deaths I felt a vague but bonedeep sadness at the waste of lives crushed up and mutilated by this celebrity machine. Fame is a terrible curse.
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end of the holiday, roamin' or otherwise. Back to work for me.
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Hard News: This Is Not A Complicated Issue, in reply to Islander,
Oh, I don't burn things lightly, least of all living things, I was just thinking of a thorough scrub with something a little more powerful than mere soap.
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Hard News: This Is Not A Complicated Issue, in reply to Hilary Stace,
Never mind the child stats, never mind the national truancy stats, never mind the hopeless failure of Maori to educate their children and stop them bashing their babies. No, it's all the Pakeha's fault. It's all about hating whitey. Believe me, that's what it looked like the other day.
and:
No, if Maori want Waitangi Day for themselves, let them have it. Let them go and raid a bit more kai moana than they need for the big, and feed themselves silly, speak of the injustices heaped upon them by the greedy Pakeha and work out new ways of bamboozling the Pakeha to come up with a few more millions.
How he swings from that into a rant agains the La Leche League then into a rant about Russia, China and Syria I don't know.
But:
But then he also has two part Maori children
And? You know how many white supremacists I've met in China? Even married to non-white women? Racists, in my experience, are highly irrational people, even by the usual standards of human irrationality. They also tend to be very good at contorting themselves into all kinds of bizarre knots of logic in either attempting to prove they're not racist, although, of course, their own race is vastly superior to all others, or admitting they are racist and attempting to prove their own race is vastly superior to all others, all the while demonstrating how there are exceptions in the other races.
But Russel did call for a bit less heat and a little more light, so I don't think we should continue this argument too long.
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Hard News: This Is Not A Complicated Issue, in reply to Islander,
I s'pose on the balance of probabilities he must manage to come out with something sensible every now and then, no matter how limited. Petrol is back in the car's petrol tank where it belongs.
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Hard News: This Is Not A Complicated Issue, in reply to Sacha,
When it comes to climate change, the media does seem to think ‘balance’ means giving the views of a tiny minority composed of many non-experts as well as experts equal weight with the views of the overwhelming majority of experts, so maybe, yes, that’s what they think ‘objectivity’ means. It’s certainly a more charitable explanation than the one I thought of.
But then again, I find the Herald’s op-ed pieces so poorly edited and incoherent I’m really not sure. For example, I think I just found myself agreeing with Paul Holmes. [shudder] -where’s the petrol? I suddenly feel the need for a very thorough cleansing. Now, do control the urge to scream “No, Paul, we said ‘How dare you be a racist fucktard!’” and scroll down to where he actually seems to say something sensible and reasonable about Mojo Mathers’ predicament. Today is getting weird.
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Any thoughts on the Herald's editorial?. It's as odd, rambling, and poorly structured as most Herald op-ed pieces (if Herald editorialists and columnists were my students, they'd have almost every essay they submitted handed back and told to choose one topic and at least attempt something resembling a logical structure), but seems to be trying to apportion blame equally between Lockwood and the Greens. Here I was thinking Parliament should be set up to allow all its members to take a full part in proceedings regardless of dis/ability.
And do I detect a note of scepticism or reluctance to acknowldege the value of Mojo Mathers' calls for captioning of Parliament TV or sign language interpreters in schools and other such services to help disabled people take a fuller part in public life? Or do I just need a little more caffeine?
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Capture: Roamin' Holiday, in reply to Jackie Clark,
That doesn't look to be the most pleasant of holidays. I hope he's doing better now?
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Hard News: This Is Not A Complicated Issue, in reply to Sacha,
To be fair to Lockwood, he has said he’s willing to fund NZSL interpreters – but notetaking in English is beyond the way he’s thinking about it.
Now I'm really confused. Both would seem to be no-brainers to me. But yes, there's that pressure to cut costs, apparently getting to the point where "counterproductive" isn't quite strong enough to describe the results of some of that cost-cutting.
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Disassembly?
Could this be? My friendly, local high tension power line that bisects my campus is finally coming down?
