Posts by Peter Ashby
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Two year olds don't need their demands met, they need their needs met. And if they are throwing a tantrum they need to be ignored until they get the message that tantrum throwing will not get them what they want. I can't believe these people who appeased tantrums for years are now surprised their adult children are still throwing tantrums.
That is absolutely true. Years ago we got a new colleague at work, small, curvy and French. She then proceeded to flutter her eyelashes and throw tantrums to try and get what she wanted NOW. The other guy in the lab who was married with a toddler and I, married been there, done that, took one look at this and ignored her. Or course we instantly earned her eternal enmity which we met with studied politeness.
She had no idea what to do with men she couldn't either brush aside or wrap around her little finger. Other women she simply ignored as much as possible. I would blame the parents in spades.
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The problem with the effect Simon G outlines is that it makes it hard to counter things that hurt and matter to NZ. For eg here in the UK whenever the issue of food miles arises in the media NZ kiwifruit and lamb are trotted out along with the shibboleth that they are airfreighted. I do my bit to counter these lies but I am only one voice without a media presence. No amount of advertising of how our animals eat only grass will counter this.
What the 'ethical shopper' will remember when in the supermarket is that you don't by NZ produce because doing so kills the planet.
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The system described is inevitable unless actively worked against and even then it will persist cyclically. This is because such systems evolve in response to experience. Each crisis, mistake, criticism, ministerial enquiry that is not straightforward and new department head will accrete new layers and pieces of practice, often for good, perfectly defensible reasons.
The problem is that plugging the hole, ensuring x never happens again or whatever is never subject to a cost-benefit analysis. Since this is just admin, it is not usually a problem. For eg road deaths would be cut dramatically if the speed limit was universally 30km/h. This is provable statistically, psychologically and physically. Yet it is simply not worth the economic slowdown, so we find a happy, productive medium and try different safety measures.
Admin needs an equivalent of the cost-benefit analysis system whereby you can say that 'yes, we could implement systems to ensure this never happens again, but the cost of this would be to ensure our effective delivery in other areas would be unacceptably degraded.
However I can see a downside to that, there is in New Zealand public discourse a strain of thought that is averse to the spending of money, any money. It is what makes public infrastructure projects so hard to do. So the above cost-benefit analysis would be turned around and used to prevent government doing anything because the actual end cost would be made manifest. For eg the actual costs to depts of FoI requests would require full funding for them . . .
So you have to decide which evils you want to swap for the ones you are trying to be rid of. Also be aware that it could be worse, much worse. Look up what Byzantine really means.
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Oh and I should agree with you about NZ customs etc officials. Last time I was back in '96 I got to the MaF guy standing there in a lemon squeezer hat who looked at my card and my passport, then on handing them back smiled and said 'welcome home'. The difference from travelling anywhere else, including into the UK on a UK passport is enormous. In that case it is definitely infinitely better to arrive than to travel.
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I agree, those who equate success with fatness of salary packages forget that there is more to life than money, not all of which can be bought.
I want to return to New Zealand because it is home, despite that I am living in the country of my birth. I imagine myself growing old(er) and retiring and dying here and I definitely do not want that. I read Russell's points about how the dollar fluctuating makes things like Mac computers expensive, but then one thing about Macs is that they last so there is less need to upgrade just because. Also life shouldn't be too easy which is something I think Bill Connolly misses. I think that in New Zealand people are much closer to the reality of death than here in the UK where anything dying is seen as a major tragedy instead of a natural part of life. In New Zealand people fall of mountains, drown crossing streams or flying microlights which means eating snags and salad off a paper plate with friends is truly valued. Here in the UK you just get canoeists pretending to die and people are forever wanting you sponsor them to cycle along the Great Wall of China for charity. Fund your own adventure holiday.
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This young man may have a mental illness, given the correlation between heavy cannabis use and the onset of symptoms of schizophrenia in vulnerable individuals.
Correlation is all it is. There was a very large Danish study recently showing that rates of Schizophrenia in using and non using cohorts are not significantly different when followed over time. What is true is that those users who go on to develop Schizophrenia tend to use most heavily, which is most likely an attempt at self medication. Schizophrenics smoke tobacco heavily too for similar reasons.
Yet despite all this the govt here in the UK just put cannabis back up to Class B despite the drop to Class C reducing the use of cannabis and the science increasingly showing no causal link between cannabis use and mental illness. For a party that came into power promising evidence based policies it is really depressing, though by this time not surprising.
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@Stephen
I only got to Auckland in '77. I remember around 1980ish a station opened that at the start played actual album tracks, not just successful singles. I can't for the life of me remember its name. For about 2months it was wonderful, then it switched to formula top40. Here in the UK Virgin Radio has morphed into Absolute Radio and their rock channel reminds me of it.I was fortunate to be in Dunedin in '94 my Freshers year. Pink Frost came out and became the song of the year. Radio1 played it once an hour on principle. I have a vinyl copy of Send You I cannot play but I got bought Positively George St for xmas and the last 3rd is it in essence and I am back there and then in a flash.
I want to buy the vinyl I've got on CD (Send You, Tuatara, Good Sounds Good, Hallelujah All The Way Home etc) but can't find them anywhere. At least there's good stuff on YouTube for when I need a hit of She's A Beatnik
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Dammit, why can't sites standardise their HTML?
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The other thing to remember is that we all listen to far, far more music than we did when we wuz young. My parent's car did not have a radio. I had an alarm radio in my bedroom. If I wanted to listen to my Floyd albums on vinyl I had to wait until I had the house to myself, so it was a treat. No we did not have a tape deck linked to the turntable.
Now when I sit down at the computer I turn on iTunes. I have an iPod and a way to connect it to the car stereo. I can choose so much to listen to music I choose that I have to consciously make an effort to listen to the radio.
When you grow up in this world your music becomes staler far quicker than it ever used to for us so they simply have far more music time to fill so they can consume the latest new thing and explore what Soft Machine were doing in 1967.
The nice thing is that I swap music with my early 20s offspring, I just added the latest Kings of Leon and introduced them to some Sneaky Feelings from <i>Send You</i>.
It's all Our music now.
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Well in terms of public protest having the desired effect:
Marched against nuclear armed ships in '83.
Refused on a number of occasions to sign the petition against the Hmosexuality law reform in iirc, 85. Sort of an anti protest, but still. I got abuse for it so it felt like a protest.
Voted for MMP in BOTH referendums despite being mightily pissed at the non necessity of the second poll.
Got to vote in the first Scottish Parliamentary election for 250years, our eldest was one of the schoolchildren lining the Royal Mile as the dignitaries processed to it. She waved to Donald Dewar who waved back. I regret that at the time of the vote to establish the parliament we were still in London and so were not eligible.