Posts by nzlemming
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Much kudos to Simon and the others involved. Whatever your musical taste, it's a hell of a resource.
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Up Front: I Swear, It's True, in reply to Geoff Lealand,
He thinks is a wit but he is only right half of the time ....
I suppose, on that basis, you could just call someone a Paul Henry...
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Up Front: I Swear, It's True, in reply to Bart Janssen,
True story. I used to answer the government's email at www.govt.nz and we would get all sorts of inquiries that I would either answer briefly or flick on to the relevant department. A lot of them were from school kids, many of them American (I used to have a little chart beside the monitor that converted American, Aussie, UK and NZ school grades to the corresponding age of the enquirer). About the time that the Toyota "Bugger" ad was famous, an American kid of about 16 wrote to ask what 'bugger' actually meant. So I told him, with references to various websites he could look up for further detail. I forgot that my boss was copied in on my responses. Fortunately, he thought it was the best email he had ever read. I never heard from the kid again, though...
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I forgot to mention "Jesus on a stick!", "Christ in a bucket" and "Jesus H. Fucking Christ!" for the trifecta.
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Hard News: Stop acting like the law is…, in reply to ,
I don't think I could ever ingest enough THC to make me take up nude rock-climbing...
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Up Front: Dear Dudebros, in reply to Rosemary McDonald,
You read my mind. Which is why you're now consuming bleach...
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Up Front: Dear Dudebros, in reply to Kumara Republic,
I'd say another aggravating factor is de-industrialisation, which affects mostly men without university degrees.
Nuh, I don't agree. NZ maleness has been fucked up since forever. Partly, it's the hangover from the colonial inheritance of the stiff upper lip. Just because we rejected the British class system in favour of "Jack's as good as his master" crowdocracy, doesn't mean we didn't retain a lot of those imperial prejudices such as racism (or "white exceptionalism") and the stoic image of "what makes a man a man". Even in full employment days, we still had people with depression who were told to just get on with it and "man up", and to be ashamed if it ever got out.
De-industrialisation as a consequence of globalism or neo-liberalism doesn't help matters, and may aggravate them, but the rot is at the root of our self-perception and has been for decades.
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Up Front: Dear Dudebros, in reply to Lilith __,
Women have to assume every man is a potential rapist, unless we have reason to believe otherwise.
Yes, that's the concomitant reality, which is why I said "Unfortunately, the lack of respect leaves women unsafe (not feeling unsafe, but actually at risk)."
A friend of mine tonight gave me the name of her date, in case something happened to her. That’s a hell of a fear to have to carry.
I hear you.
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Up Front: Dear Dudebros, in reply to ,
You know something I don’t understand, where did John Kerwin’s anxiety and depression come from?
It's a medical condition, an imbalance of neurotransmitters in the brain. It isn't about "what did he fear?" because what he feared was being found out a fraud, no matter how authentic his achievements actually were. It's not insanity, it's illness. Sometimes it's brought on by stress, sometimes by illness, sometimes genetic disposition. Mine was stress-originated, but removing the stress hasn't removed the illness, nor will it ever. I take tablets every day because the alternative is too terrible to go through again.
I belong to a men's group the Whirlwind Trust which is basically for broken blokes like me, getting together and supporting each other. The common story that comes across is "I failed".
To me, that's what JK was anxious about - failing, or not being the best. For all his hard work, even while he was the best wing in rugby, he was still anxious about failing, letting the pack (literal and figurative) down. And, over time, his anxiety became self-fueling, because that's what the fucking thing does. It's addictive. Runners get addicted that dopamine high. Anxious people get just as addicted to whatever neurotransmitter is out of balance (it's not the same for everyone) only it's more destructive. Worst case is fugue state where you just can't bloody move.
I used to get into work and have a game of Freecell before I got started. Then another, then "I'll do that after I finish this game", until it was all I could do to move the mouse. Outside work, you wouldn't know there was anything wrong, but in the office I became incapable of making a decision or getting anything done. It wasn't until it became an employment issue that I was able to get help.
When we talk about changing the culture, it's not just about rape (because not all men are rapists), it's about changing the mentality that "boys will be boys" is an okay philosophy, that women are objects, and thus property and can be disposed of at the whim of a man, that "boys don't cry" is the way to raise a man. We're really talking about respect, for ourselves and each other. Unfortunately, the lack of respect leaves women unsafe (not feeling unsafe, but actually at risk).
Here endeth the lesson ;-)
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Up Front: Dear Dudebros, in reply to andin,
One thing that baffles me why are rugby players prone to being complete shit gibbons? Play your game, go home. Whats difficult about that.
It's the pack mentality, not limited to sportsball fanatics, but certainly exemplified by them. "If everyone else is doing it I can't be wrong to do it too ". Any group of males is self-reinforcing in behaviour. If its a group of good blokes, the reinforced behaviour is good. But it only takes one real shit-gibbon to turn a bunch of insecure blokes into howling monkeys themselves. It does take, as stephen alludes to, real balls to stand up to a group of shit-gibbons in full roar.