Posts by Craig Ranapia
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Will we go the whole show without mention of Australian gossip columnists taken more seriously here than by their own outlet, recently wed English captains gone wild (maybe) and a concern troll moral panic dressed up as an intervention?
-
Hard News: Chill out: it's a party, in reply to Russell Brown,
The “Labour are being negative ninnies” thing was just a spin line to avoid talking about McCully in Parliament.
Well, yes... and during the term of the Fifth Labour Government too many people who should have known better let the phrase "talking New Zealand down" cross their lips in an apparent comprehension fail of the difference between a democracy and some autocratic theocracy. Sadly, too many politicians need to HTFU and get ego lipo.
-
Hard News: Chill out: it's a party, in reply to BenWilson,
I'm rather bemused how a gossip item in the bowels of the Sydney Morning Herald (and which was deemed to require no further coverage there) got turned into some demented diplomatic non-troversy by... well, The New Zealand Herald among others.
Sorry for sounding like a broken record, but it would be really nice if the Herald would engage in some honest self-reflection about whether it adds value to public discourse. Just once.
-
Hard News: Chill out: it's a party, in reply to Russell Brown,
Tapu Misa quotes me in her column but sort of misses my point.
Oh, Tapu… love you, love your work, build a bridge and get the frak over yourself. I’m sorry, but a particularly tiresome columnist trope is how they’re having their dissent crushed by… well, abso-fucking-loutely nothing in the pages of the only daily newspaper in New Zealand’s largest media market (and a well-patronised website).
Perhaps her son just didn’t want to be seen standing next to the killjoy nana, which probably proves nothing more than she birthed a fairly typical teenager.
ETA: BTW, my David worked on Saturday night and when he rolled in at 2.30am he said the most eventful thing that happened was helping to steer a couple of benignly drunk Irishmen towards a taxi rack.
ETA2: One more thing, this really fucks me off too:
The election is just over nine weeks away, but good luck to anyone trying to get the country focused on anything else for the next five weeks.
Yeah, Tapu, it's not as if The Herald had editors who could have decided the "Minister of Bad Manners" story had no news value. I really love the way media folks act as if they've no influence over their own editorial and news judgement. Do magic elves assemble newspapers, television news and radio bulletins?
-
Hard News: LATE OCTOBER: Life in the…, in reply to Jackie Clark,
Wise, wise words my darling. We are all, at some stage of our life's work, the ones peering in from the outside, aren't we?
That's true - and we all live betwixt and between more than most of us think. For the first time in years, I remembered a Polish brother and sister I went to primary school with, who'd talk to each other in Polish. And there were Italian and Greek kids who'd go home to families, and communities, where "normal" was a whole other thing. I'd argue that it's always been a rather simplistic (in a bad sense) reading of this country that it was, and is, a vast Borg Collective of pseudo-Englishmen. The reality, as it always is, is much more complicated - and interesting.
As the academics say :), the whole concept of "otherness" becomes problematic when you start asking who draws the boundaries, who defines the terms. I also think for all our "Godwits fly" cultural cringing, the best of us are keas - curious, eclectic, constantly looking around and seeing what we can steal and adapt. We go away, come home, asking "what do we keep, what do we put aside and what do we make new?"
-
I'm beginning to think we all both at a margin and a center - it all depends on where you're standing, and how self-aware you are that "normal" is a minefield. After the best part of a decade in Auckland, I barely notice that there's a hell of a lot of stores on the Shore where English signs are almost an after thought. And I don't mind being on the bus and eavesdropping on teenagers babbling away languages I don't understand.
-
Hard News: The Minister's Brain Has Exploded, in reply to Sacha,
eh?
Sacha: I think we can assume that anyone who isn’t demanding the evil Government be stuffed with candy, strung up from the nearest lamp-post and beaten with sticks by small children is a Tory-felching sycophant in Tom’s book.
One fears for Mr Armstrong; what happens when Smile’n’Wave gets bored and decides to leave politics?
Oh, as Danyl pointed out, Armstrong wasn’t above penning some pretty clammy mash-notes to Helen Clark, and on more than one occasion I wished Winston Peters and the Press Gallery would get a room and fuck already. I’m sure he’ll develop a big old man-crush on the next Labour Prime Minister and you’ll start praising Armstrong's incandescent perspicacity. Honestly, I think the New Zealand Herald's only partisan allegiance is to the stupid party. (h/t J.S. Mill)
-
Hard News: The Minister's Brain Has Exploded, in reply to Sacha,
No, it doesn’t. When someone pays you to provide a service, they tend to have the upper hand in the relationship – whether that’s fair or not. $35m is not chump change. Veolia aren’t a charity and they’re free to resign the contract if they can’t meet its terms.
Thanks for that, Doctor Brash. :) You’re right -$35 million isn’t chump change. Neither is the hundreds of millions of dollars being poured into Auckland Transport every financial year – and we don’t get to opt out of paying for them. Call me a naive old whoopsie, but I think hiring people who clear and action their voice mail isn’t an unreasonable bench mark.
transport sector culture is certainly interesting
In a Chinese curse kind of way, I guess you’re right. But I’ve worked in placed with that kind of toxic culture and they also tend to be the same workplaces with high staff turnover, serious recruitment and retention issues and a lack of institutional memory and expertise because they've got a bad rep in industry circles. Not really good for Auckland's public transport in the end.
-
Hard News: The Minister's Brain Has Exploded, in reply to Sacha,
I doubt you can call the funder commissioning another independent report by a lawyer or demanding to station their own staff in Veolia’s control room a vote of confidence.
To be quite blunt about it, Sacha, that goes both ways. Do you really think the comments made by Brown and Mike Lee over the weekend engendered much in the way of trust or open communication? I get that there are elements in Auckland Transport and the Council who have ideological issues with the current framework, but they really need to get the fuck over it and stop treating Veolia like the enemy. And Auckland Transport just has to take some ownership for its side of a less than ideal relationship. As I said on the other thread, I know people who aren't getting important calls and e-mails replied to in a timely manner - which affects their ability to do basic shit like lock in rosters and scheduling. That's not rocket science, Sacha, but Not Treating Contractors Like Crap 101.
I've also had it put to me that there are a lot of people who've basically given up telling Auckland Transport what they don't want to hear - because there's only so many times you can be confronted with people with their fingers in their ears before you take the hint.
-
Hard News: The Minister's Brain Has Exploded, in reply to Sacha,
Wow, I wonder if the media are going to fully report those incident logs - or would they mess with the "rail fail shame" narrative too much? I think there's more than a few people at Veolia who would welcome public apologies from certain politicians (yes, including Len Brown and the Prime Minister) for knee-jerk attacks over the weekend. They shouldn't hold their breath waiting, though.
Last ←Newer Page 1 … 254 255 256 257 258 … 1235 Older→ First